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.