Baltimore budget cuts lead to no nurses in schools
In Baltimore, problems are resulting from budget cuts to a $10 million nursing program that is meant to place a nurse or health aide in every city school. According to the Baltimore Sun, the schools and the city fund the program, and the medical personnel are provided by the city Health Department. But this month, 20 of the city’s 39 high schools learned they would not have any medical personnel on staff. When the Health Department informed school officials about the staff cuts in June, meetings were scheduled between school and city health officials to discuss the problem, but the meetings never happened. As a result of staff cuts, school principals will have to dispense medication to sick students — a violation of a state regulation that requires a registered nurse to oversee such matters. http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/yahoo/bal-md.nurses26sep26,0,7415991.story?coll=bal-newsaol-headlines