Having the ability to use the nurses’ office has been something students have known was available since elementary school, but this year is different.
The number of students going to the nurse on a daily basis has risen significantly since the 2023-2024 school year. As of the first marking period, there have been 3,705 visits. Many students within the school have medical needs, making them the top priority to get seen.
“The problems we have here are the problems all medical facilities have,” nurse Paula Dibert said. “We’re no different than an ER, a doctor’s office, anything like that. We do the best we can to try to provide everybody what they need in a reasonable amount of time. Unfortunately, sometimes people are going to have to wait now. What we do is we also will prioritize. When they sign in, we’ll go out. And if it’s a diabetic, they go straight to the line. That’s why we put that sign there. You’re not seen in any specific order.”
Students must have signed hall passes to go to the nurse.
“Diabetes would come first. If you’re here for a Band-Aid and somebody’s here for a daily med, the medication comes first. Part of the nursing process is prioritization, and that’s what we’re used to doing,” nurse Renee Weidlich said. “That’s so we can have kids who will wait, and we have kids who walk out because they don’t want to wait. If we have a diabetic and we have meds, they are priority, and your Band-Aid and your Tylenol or even your nausea is lower on the list.”
The number of students who go to the nurse started skyrocketing during the 2023-2024 school year. After the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, nurses started to notice the numbers rise like never before.
“The biggest thing we are seeing is higher volume,” Dibert said. “We are seeing more days, more students, 90 to 100 is our average high per day. It’s higher than what we’ve ever seen before. I can tell you, last year is pretty much comparable. I think that COVID-19 did a disservice to the health community, and a lot of people have a different line of thinking after we went through the pandemic. We do see a lot more people that have illness complaints that think maybe it’s something serious. We assess them and make sure that it’s not, but we’ve seen since COVID, and we return to full time.”
