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| Thursday, Jan 10 2008 9:42 AM
Last Updated: Thursday, Jan 10 2008 9:42 AM
The number of students who require insulin injections during the school day in the Bakersfield City School District has quadrupled in two years, according to Debbie Wood, the district’s health coordinator.
“We’re struggling to be able to meet the needs of these kids,” she said.
The district has 14 nurses, including Wood, for its 42 traditional elementary and middle schools, who must administer insulin.
Wood said she is thankful the district has funded so many nurses. Half of the county’s districts don’t have one, she said.
But BCSD’s nurses spend much of their day traveling between three or four schools each in order to administer insulin, Wood said, as well as keeping up on traditional duties including nutrition counseling and health screening.
While she is uncertain of the exact figures, Wood said she attributed “a fair amount” of the increase in diabetes to obesity.
In the Kern High School District the number of known diabetic students has grown more than 44 percent to 52 since the 2005-2006 school year, according to Amy Greene, KHSD’s sole district nurse. Two other nurses tend to special education students.
High school students often don’t notify schools of their illness because they test and administer insulin themselves, she said.
Diabetes in special education students has also increased, according to Tanya Bray, one of two KHSD special education nurses.
The district had one diabetic when she first started five years ago, she said. Every year since, she has seen several more students come in to the district with the diagnosis.
“This is a pretty recent phenomenon,” Bray said.