There are school nurses across the country that are being asked to provide their own PPE. I am trying to see how widespread this practice is and how school nurses are responding.
I received this anonymous message from a school nurse:
I have a question regarding PPE. Is it commonplace to be asked to sign off on guidelines that state we are responsible for supplying our own PPE? I have also been told that my district has a stock of surgical masks but there is not enough for clinic staff to use daily. I feel uneasy electronically signing off when it clearly states staff are responsible for providing PPE on their own.
- Is your district asking you to provide your own PPE?
- What would you do if you were this school nurse?
- Is your district providing PPE for school staff?
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Published by Robin Cogan, MEd, RN, NCSN, FNASN, FAAN
Robin Cogan, MEd, RN, NCSN, FNASN, FAAN, is a Nationally Certified School Nurse (NCSN), currently in her 22nd year as a New Jersey school nurse in the Camden City School District. Robin is the Director for New Jersey to the National Association of School Nurses (NASN) Board. She is proud to be a Johnson & Johnson School Health Leadership Fellow and past Program Mentor. Robin is the honored recipient of multiple awards for her work in school nursing and population health. These awards include, 2019 and 2020 National Association of School Nurses President’s Award, 2018 NCSN School Nurse of the Year, 2017 Johnson & Johnson School Nurse of the Year, and the New Jersey Department of Health 2017 Population Health Hero Award. Robin serves as faculty in the School Nurse Certificate Program at Rutgers University-Camden School of Nursing, where she teaches the next generation of school nurses. She was presented the 2018 Rutgers University – Camden Chancellor’s Teaching Excellence Award for Part-time Faculty. Robin writes a weekly blog called The Relentless School Nurse. She also writes a monthly column in My American Nurse, the official journal of the American Nurses Association. Robin’s work is included as a case study in The Future of Nursing Report 2020-2030. You can follow Robin on Twitter at @RobinCogan.
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I work for a Charter and they are providing all PPE for me. It is difficult to find, but we have placed orders and I am praying they all arrive before school begins. Many of our orders placed in March were cancelled by the manufacturer, so now we are down to the wire.
We are being provided PPE but still on order. I’m in IL. Isn’t it the school that has to provide PPE for a safe work environment? I would look into that and get my facts to show them. Providing our own should not be the case.