Public school nurses to develop health initiatives

Abu Dhabi: Hundreds of public school nurses across the emirate of Abu Dhabi will soon be entrusted to develop and introduce focussed initiatives that improve the health and wellbeing of the children they treat, a senior health official said in the capital today (Tuesday).

The nurses will consider results of existing school health screenings, and the common problems faced by children in the school they work at, and design these initiatives for use during the upcoming 2013-2014 academic year, Dr Nahida Salama, senior education officer at the Ambulatory Healthcare Services (AHS), told Gulf News.

“Certain health problems are common to many schools in the emirate, while others pertain to individual schools. In the past, we have had scattered initiatives being introduced by selected nurses. Their efficacy has prompted us to encourage all nurses to design their own school-based initiatives,” Dr Salama said.

The AHS, a part of the Abu Dhabi Health Services Company (SEHA), currently deploys more than 360 licensed school nurses to treat children at 265 public schools in the emirate. In addition to treating children’s health concerns and referring them for further treatment, the nurses also conduct annual screenings to record relevant details about pupils’ health, including height, weight, body mass index, colour blindness and vision acuity.

To illustrate the initiative, Dr Salama provided an example of a programme introduced at a Western Region public school during the previous academic year.

“The nurse in question, Jumana Dobbo, noticed frequent foot injuries among pupils, which were occurring because many of them did not wear shoes or adequate footwear while engaging in sports,” Dr Nahida explained.

Dobbo added that she realised how the boys in the Cycle 1 (Grades 1 to 5) school, were unaware of the necessity of proper shoes to protect them from serious injuries.

“One little boy was even hospitalised for a while as a result of these injuries. So I arranged meetings with the parents and the administration, and highlighted the issue. Within a semester, I noticed an 80 per cent drop in foot injuries, as well as injuries that result when children don’t wear correct footwear,” said the charge nurse at the AHS.

Dr Salama added that other school nurses would be encouraged to develop similar campaigns regarding physical and mental health concerns.

“They can tackle ongoing problems such as obesity, inactive lifestyles, personal hygiene, and thalassemia-related issues, among others. Or they could be directed to problems unique to each school,” she said.

The healthcare workers were speaking on the sidelines of a press conference organised to announce the progress of public schools in migrating pupils’ health-related data to an integrated electronic system.

Dr Najah Mustapha, school health service director at the AHS, said the nurses had earlier been spending a lot of time filling out demographic, consent, vaccination and other details on more than 26 paper-based forms per pupil.

The migration to electronic records, using a system known as CERNER, was therefore initiated in September 2012 by the AHS and the Abu Dhabi Education Council (Adec). It is expected to be completed by June 2014. At present, 123 public schools in Abu Dhabi have begun using CERNER, and schools in Al Ain and the Western Region will begin implementation in September 2013.

These records are also integrated with those in public healthcare facilities in the emirate, which are managed and operated by SEHA. As a result, when a pupil joins a public school, an electronic record is created. If the pupil had already visited a SEHA facility prior to enrolment, the electronic record from the healthcare facility is transferred to the school.

“In addition to significant time savings, public school nurses now have access to children’s medical history and can offer holistic treatment accordingly,” Dr Mustapha said.

The school health director said that the electronic system will also allow for the easy compilation of statistics about schoolchildren’s health when required.