Making it all better

King Street School nurse dispenses plenty of tender, loving care

By Eileen FitzGerald
THE NEWS-TIMES

DANBURY – "Excuse me. I have a paper cut."

"It seems I have a bloody nose."

School nurse Beverly Ackell leapt into action.

She soothed one child with a Band-Aid and helped the other blow her nose, which wasn't bloody after all.

Ackell is the school nurse at King Street Primary School, where kindergartners through second-graders come to her brightly decorated office for consolation, repairs, medication or sometimes just a break from class.

"This is the best age level. They are so innocent. Everything is new, a joy to them,'' said Ackell, who might see up to 25 kids on a typical day.

The 67-year-old-Ackell has broad medical experience. She has worked in operating rooms and in pediatric and geriatrics wards in hospitals. Over the past 21 years, she worked in Danbury schools, spending time at the middle and high schools before coming to the King Street school 10 years ago.

Children come with many more problems today than when she first started, she said. The school nurse now needs to be medically astute and technologically enlightened to deal with children's demanding medical conditions and complex social issues.

"They bring their environment from home with its problems," she said. "They come with a lot of baggage.''

The nurse's routines are the easy part. They vary depending on the age of the children.

In the early grades, she said, the nurse gives every child a yearly exam that records height, weight, hearing and vision and keeps track of all immunizations. In addition, the nurse keeps a record of every child's visit to her office, why they were there, how they were treated and calls the parents to follow up, if warranted.

Outdoor recess is bound to bring children to her office with some injury because the children are so lively, she said. Then there are the epidemics of strep, ear aches, nausea, upper respiratory infections and head lice that can be rampant at this age.

"You need to have a varied background to be a school nurse. You need to be able to draw from your experiences," Ackell said.

While more children take medicine for hyperactivity at home instead of at school as they did in the 1990s, nurses see other, more complex medical needs these days.

For one, thing, more children have asthma and need medication than ever before. This year, Ackell has six children in the school with nut allergies, which can be life threatening.

That means she has on hand asthma medication for each child and antihistamines in shot form ready for instant use.

And, because schools now mainstream children with special needs, school nurses must be more informed about medical conditions and keep records on each child with special medical requirements.

She also teaches hygiene at grade level. That means in first grade teaching them how to blow their noses, how to wash their hands and how to eat healthy.

The nurse is an integral part of the school staff, said King Street principal Nancy Gurtner, who has been a principal for 16 years and on occasion has had to manage without a nurse in the building.

"There are more kids who come to school who are medically fragile, more kids seem to have illnesses like asthma than was recognized years ago,'' Gurtner said.

She said the school nurse has added importance in the lives of families who don't have the time or sometimes the money to take their children to the doctor. A mother might bring her child to school in the morning and ask the nurse to take the child's temperature.

Gurtner said Ackell usually follows up on a child sent home sick to make sure they don't come back to school too soon.

She said children like to visit Ackell, whose office is next to the principal's.

"There are some children who would like to go in more often. They get to leave the classroom and get a few kind words,'' Gurtner said. "It's a little emotional haven for them. You have to find a happy medium, for those who would benefit more by staying in class to those who need the nurse's attention."

Ackell said the world can seem a little harsh today, and it plays out in the health of the children.

"There is the fear of terror that we didn't know five years ago. We may have known about it but it didn't touch us. And the kids know what is happening,'' she said. "Stable home lives are not the norm. In the future, I don't see it getting any better."

Still, she loves her job.

"I love it. I love the kids,'' Ackell said. "Every day goes so fast."