Health Watch: Ga. School Nurse Shortage

As Georgia schools prepare for the possibility of another round of pandemic flu, school nurses are in the spotlight, but they are in short supply.

In Georgia, one nurse handles an average of two schools and more than 1,700 students.

In 26 years on the job Cynthia Scurry, a school nurse at Cobb County's Kemp Elementary School, said she has never had her hands as full as they are now.

Scurry takes care of about 865 students and works with parents to keep kids healthy while they are in school. Scurry manages hundreds of medications and stocks up for emergencies both big and small.

This year, Scurry and hundreds of other Georgia school nurses have a new concern as schools brace for the H1N1 flu.

"I want kids and parents to be excited about coming to school without having to worry that they're going to get sick," said Scurry.

Last spring, the H1N1 virus spread fast and furiously through schools across the country and hit children much harder than adults.

Scurry is now stressing prevention to try and get ahead of a possible outbreak. Scurry has blanketed Kemp Elementary Schools with signs "to remind everyone to wash their hands. Not just hand sanitizer, but wash your hands."

This fall, health officials are asking parents to check their children each morning before school for flu-like symptoms and keep them home until they have been fever-free for at least 24 hours.

"If they're sick, if they're not feeling well, if they've got a fever, vomiting diarrhea, stay home," advised Scurry.

Cobb County is one of the few school systems to actually have a nurse in every school. Most of the time nurses move from school to school. In fact, the Georgia Association of School Nurses says for every nurse there are 1,734 students. Scurry said that's what makes it critical that parents help out and keep sick kids at home this year.

One sick student can trigger a chain reaction. "It can quickly spread throughout a class of 22 to 25 children possibly, a teacher, who may be pregnant, who may have children at home and they get ill," said Scurry.

Flu germs can survive on hard surfaces like desks and doorknobs for up to 48 hours so Scurry is reminding both kids and adults not to tough their faces.

"[Try] not to pick your noses, not to rub your eyes, not to put your hands in your mouth and as adults, we do that too. When I'm nervous, or I'm tired, the first thing I want to do is rub my eyes. And those are all mucus membranes that germs like to come into," said Scurry.

Scurry said she has respiratory masks and thermometer ready just in case, because there is no way to know that the school year will bring to her little clinic.