Kentucky lawmakers are expected to consider legislation for better disease management in schools for children with diabetes.
Stewart Perry, state advocate for the American Diabetes Association, says parents have been forced to make hard choices to make sure their children receive the care they need.
“I have some parents who have taken their kids and actually home schooled them because they couldn’t make sure their kids were going to be taken care of in a school based setting. I have school employees that want to be trained to help that deal with his issue outside the school, that are being told by the school system, you cannot do it,” said Perry.
Perry says one of the most important issues is that of insulin administration in schools, especially for newly diagnosed diabetic children. He says there are simply not enough school nurses available to provide adequate care across the state.
“And in our economy, you’ve got two working parents and both of them have to work, what are they going to do with their child, if there’s not somebody there to help and there’s no school nurse. Or there’s one school nurse for 16 hundred kids,” added Perry.
Perry expects the issue to come before the Senate Health and Welfare Committee in the next few weeks of the current session of the General Assembly.
