Infignos Media - Alabama Legislature debating change to student diabetes policy

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Alabama Legislature debating change to student diabetes policy

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

The Alabama Legislature is on the verge of making changes to policies relating to students with diabetes in schools across the state.

The bill would allow schools and school systems to designate and train non-medical personnel to administer diabetes treatments like Glucagon and insulin for students that need it.

"For those children who don't have a school nurse, in many cases they've had to go to another school and this will give us an opportunity to have somebody trained in that school who can go to those children," said Eric Mackey, Executive Director of the School Superintendents of Alabama. "If they're very fragile children and they have to have a nurse, then the school system can provide a nurse for them."

The Alabama Senate approved the bill several weeks ago and a House committee has already given the bill a favorable report, sending it to the full Alabama House of Representatives. It hasn't yet been brought up for consideration in the lower chamber.

Current law states that only school nurses are allowed to administer the diabetes injections for students. The fact that Alabama does not allow staff other than nurses to administer diabetes treatments, and that in some cases children are required to change schools led to the Department of Justice to get involved.

The Justice Department has sent a pair of letters outlining their concerns to the state after receiving complaints from parents in Alabama who were concerned for their children who live with diabetes.

The initial December 3 letter said, "The State's and Districts' policies, practices, and procedures discriminate against, and interfere with the rights of, students with diabetes who use insulin and Glucagon and is in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act."

The letter continued, "A local school district cannot treat children with diabetes differently from their siblings and peers by forcing them to transfer to a school with a nurse, unless necessary based upon the child's current medical data."

The Justice Department sent a second letter earlier this month.

Specifically the Justice Department argued that the practice of requiring diabetic students to attend specific schools that have proper staffing for their medical needs violated their rights to equal protection under the law according to the US Constitution.

The Department of Education, the Alabama Board of Nursing, and several other education associations all support the bill to allow schools to train more people to administer diabetes treatments for school children.

Honor Ingle with Alabama Board of Nursing said his group opposed the first version of the bill but that the board is now agreeable to the legislation that has passed the Alabama Senate.

"I think it's fair to say that children will have access to injectable medications with more people trained to administer them," Ingle said.

The proposal wouldn't mandate that any individual must receive training, and the bill would not replace any child's individual health plan that they have on file with the school district.

Eric Mackey, with the School Superintendents of Alabama, said it's long overdue that the state is just now addressing the problem.

"We have hundreds of kids across the state who are in the classroom every day," Mackey said. "Some of them are playing sports, they're going on field trips, all kinds of things in and after school and we want to make sure that they're as safe as possible and that there's always an adult that can take care of their needs."

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Keywords: Alabama Legislature , diabetes ,schools, Alabama Board of Nursing,children with diabetes ,

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