By Jane Meredith Adams, EdSource
Five-year-old Gabriella Dominguez spends 20 minutes every hour in the back of her transitional kindergarten classroom consuming mini-meals she finds dreadfully unappetizing: no water, no sugar, no fat, the occasional cracker and lots of bland liquid nutritional supplements.
Born with Hirschsprung’s disease, an intestinal disorder, Gabriella is one of four medically fragile students at Willow Glen Elementary School in San Jose and part of a growing number of students who come to school with chronic and often serious health conditions.
The medical oversight that students like Gabriella receive at school is part of a “hidden health care system” that intertwines school nurses, educators and community health providers according to a statewide report released Friday. That system could be run a lot more efficiently and effectively, according to the report's authors at the School of Nursing at California State University, Sacramento.
Medical advances and federal and state laws have opened the door for more chronically ill children to attend general education classrooms, the report said. School nurses, already carrying large case loads because of budget cuts, are now suctioning breathing tubes, inserting urinary catheters, testing blood sugar levels and monitoring ventilators.