From the Sacramento Bee, San Jose Mercury News:

A Sacramento Superior Court judge has ruled that California public schools cannot allow nonmedical staff members to administer insulin to students with diabetes. The judge sided with the California Nurses Association, which had challenged a 2007 rule that allowed trained, unlicensed school staff — not just school nurses — to administer insulin injections.

The ruling was seen as a major setback by parents of students with diabetes. They had filed a class action lawsuit in 2005 arguing that rules governing insulin injections, coupled with a shortage of nurses, were causing diabetic public schoolchildren to be denied an education in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

With fewer than a third of California’s public schools having a nurse on site, parents reported that they were being forced to come to school themselves to give the shots or keep children out of school. “I’m literally sick to my stomach,” said parent Lisa Shenson. “There are thousands of children in California who (now) will not be able to safely attend school.”

Some 14,000 California schoolchildren have diabetes. It is estimated that there are 23.6 million Americans with diabetes, or almost 8 percent of the population.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 18th, 2008 at 10:59 am and is filed under ADA, diabetes, education, law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.