Stupidity: Part VI
We all make stupid mistakes in our lives but when officials make
mistakes that cost lives, there is something very wrong going on and that is
when better minds should step in and put an end to these stupid blunders.
Stupid school blunders
Asthma affects more than 300 million people
worldwide and is the world’s most common children’s chronic illness. Symptoms
include wheezing, shortness of breath, coughing and chest tightness. In Britain
alone, it affects one in every 11 children.
October 9, 2012, twelve-year-old
Ryan Gibbons felt ill while playing soccer. He made it into the school but
blacked out after suffering from an extreme asthma attack. Why didn’t he use
his corticosteroids puffer? (an inhaler that asthma attack victims carry with
them that delivers a medicated mist into the user’s lungs)
His school, located
in the village of Straffordville in southwestern Ontario, Canada had a school policy
that forbids students from carrying the corticosteroids puffer that makes the breathing
of victims of asthma easier. The boy died before anyone could retrieve his
inhaler which was locked away in the main office.
Asthma victims when
they are having an asthma attack can just take the puffer out of their pockets
or backpacks and with a squirt or two, they are just fine. How sad it is that Ryan did not have that
opportunity because of a stupid school policy prohibiting him to have it on him
at all times.
His mother said that every time her son took a
backup inhaler to school, “we always got a phone call (from the school) saying
he’s not allowed to have it since there is supposed to be one in the office and
that’s the only one he could have.” Well that school policy didn’t work since
the staff couldn’t get it to the boy in time to prevent his death. If he had it
in his pocket, he could have used it right at the onset of the attack and
survived the attack.
The school on one
occasion found an inhaler in his bag and they confiscated it. They called
Ryan’s mother to come to the school to pick up the inhaler since they wouldn’t even
permit the boy to have it on his person when leaving the school to go home.
That is outright dumb. What would happen if on the way home, he had an extreme
asthma attack? Where would his inhaler be? Many blocks away? A mile away? A lot
of good his inhaler would be to him if it was locked in an office.
Why did this school
have this silly policy? They thought some other kids may play with it just to
get a thrill in using it since it could make them feel giddy. That is nonsense.
What asthmatic child would be foolish enough to give another student his
inhaler so he could play with it?
That school in the village
of Straffordville isn’t the only school that has that silly policy. Other
schools in Ontario do the same thing. Beginning in the 1990s they began storing
their student’s inhalers in their main offices.
Strangely enough, the Province of Ontario has a law that mandates
a comprehensive anaphylaxis plan for all schools in Ontario.
Anaphylaxis is a serious allergic reaction that is rapid in onset
and may cause death. In cases of being allergic to peanuts, the victims carry
with them at all times, an EpiPen which is a
device contain a
spring-loaded needle that exits the tip of the device (in some cases through a
sterile membrane) and penetrates the analeptic victim’s skin so that
it will then immediately deliver the vital medication via subcutaneous intramuscular injection.
Sabrina Shannon was a 13-year-old
student in a school in Pembroke, a small Canadian city in the Ottawa Valley in Ontario.
On September 29, 2003, Sabrina balked at her mother’s efforts to have her take
yet another allergen-free sandwich to school. It was the end of the teen’s
first month of Grade 8 at Bishop Smith Catholic High School. She told her mom
that the previous week, that she’d eaten French fries once in the cafeteria
after checking that they didn’t contain any of her allergy triggers. The fries
were safe and tasty and she wanted eat them again at lunch that day.
Sara Shannon, Sabrina’s mother
resisted at first, but she also trusted Sabrina’s judgment. Her daughter had
always been responsible about her allergies, asking the right questions before
eating, always carrying her EpiPen auto-injector in her backpack, along with
the puffer for her asthma. Sara agreed. Around 11:40 that morning, Sabrina and
her best friend went to the cafeteria, and Sabrina ordered fries after again
making sure that they were cooked in vegetable rather than peanut oil.
In the class after lunch, Sabrina
began to wheeze. Thinking she was having an asthma attack, the teen headed for
the school office at the other end of the building where her inhaler was kept.
By the time she got there, Sabrina was in serious respiratory trouble, and kept
repeating “it’s my asthma.”
A teacher raced to Sabrina’s locker to get her EpiPen
auto-injector in case it was in fact a food allergy she was suffering from. How
she got the locker open is beyond me. If it was a combination lock and Sabrina
was unconscious, then she wouldn’t be able to get the EpiPen to Sabrina. In any case, school officials called an
ambulance. Meanwhile Sabrina collapsed and lost consciousness; going into
cardiac arrest before the device could be administered and before the ambulance
arrived.
At the hospital in Ottawa, it was later determined that she
suffered from severe brain damage. Her devastated condition was the result of anaphylaxis due to food
allergy. The coroner stated that the allergic trigger was dairy protein, which
Sabrina was also allergic to and would have been exposed to through
cross-contamination from tongs used to lift her fries. Those same tongs had
also been used to serve orders accompanied by poutine,
the French Canadian accompaniment of gravy and melted cheese curds. She would
have been allergic to the curds.
On September 30, a day after her
reaction, Sabrina was removed from life support and died.
Far too much time was wasted by her having to first going to the
office and later a teacher going to her locker and then returning to the office
where Sabrina was unconscious. By then, it was too late to save her.
Having one’s reliever puffer and/or EpiPen on hand at all times is
vitally important to mitigate sudden asthma or attacks and/or analeptic
attacks. These protective devices should be with each of the victims, not
locked in offices, in lockers or teacher’s desks. Had these two victims had
those devices on their person, they would have been saved.
It appears the
problem lies with board policies that manage all medications brought into
schools without making exceptions for the benign inhalers that cause no harm.
That really must change.
Imagine if you will
a student suffering from severe angina and needs to place a Nitrostat pill
under his or her tongue but can’t do it in time because the pills are locked
away in some office. I have a very weak
heart, and while I was studying Family Law in College, I didn’t place my pills
in some office. They were with me at all times. Shortly after that, I had a
heart attack. The pills kept me alive long enough for me to get to the nearby
hospital.
In some of
Ontario’s schools, the students aren’t allowed to have them on their person and
must leave the inhalers in a school office while at other schools; the inhaler
has to be in the teacher’s desk. Naturally,
that doesn’t help the victims when they go out in the playground.
It appears the
problem lies with board policies that manage all medications brought into
schools without making exceptions for the benign inhalers that cause no harm.
That really must change.
Now, inspired by the advocacy work of Ryan’s mother, Sandra,
Progressive Conservative member of the Ontario Legislature, Jeff Yurek is currently
pushing Ryan’s Law, a private member’s bill that calls for streamlined province-wide
asthma policies so that future tragedies can be avoided.
It’s unfortunate
that boards don’t follow common-sense procedures without the need for
legislative intervention. But, in his research, Yurek discovered a hodgepodge
of policies that range from extreme (locked in a principal’s office or a
teacher’s desk) to practical policies, like those in Halton Region where students
and inhalers don’t part company. Since one in five Ontario children suffers
from the chronic condition, Bill 135 is the next logical step. It should become
law.
Under the proposed
bill, a doctor’s request will allow students to keep their inhalers close by.
The bill also asks for some teacher training, which Yurek says could be dealt
with during a professional development day and an individual plan for the rare
circumstances when an inhaler doesn’t work such as having one in the main
office for emergencies. That should also apply to EpiPen. There is no need for
exhaustive studies required since the problem is obvious as is the solution to
it.
“Bill 135
will ensure that all schools in the province have policies in place to protect
our children,” said the Lung Association spokeswoman Andrea Stevens Lavigne,
noting that among children, asthma is the number one cause of hospitalization
and a major reason for trips to the emergency department. “Although it can be
fatal it also can be manageable,” she said. “If well controlled and with the
proper supports in place, asthma can definitely be managed.”
The bill was introduced on November 20 2013. Its
Second Reading debate was held December 5, 2013. When it will become law is
anyone’s guess. Meanwhile I strongly urge the parents of these children, who
need these devices, that they insist that their children must keep these
devices with them at all times and not is some school office or student’s
locker or in a teacher’s desk.
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