2024-02-04 14:05:43
Sherry Lin Isler is a nurse practitioner and a food allergy mom. Her son, Lincoln, was diagnosed with several food allergies at a young age.
“To peas, chickpeas, lentils, as well as dairy,” Sherry said.
When it came time to start kindergarten, Sherry enrolled him in the before and after school program at his school.
“Thinking that would be the safest option for him because the EpiPens are already there and he’s at school,” she said.
But on the first day of school, Sherry realized that wouldn’t be the case when she asked about the program’s protocols for dealing with children who carry epinephrine.
“They’re like, ‘no, we don’t do EpiPens here’,” Sherry said she was told by the after care provider. “She’s like, ‘we don’t have the training on that’ and I was like well, what are you going to do if he goes into anaphylaxis?”
Sherry said she was told the staff would call 911.
“I was like, he could be dead by the time 911 comes,” Sherry said she told them.
Sherry found another after care provider for her son, but the experience got her thinking.
“Training should be the standard, not the exception,” she said.
When she did some digging, what she found concerned her.
“Nobody has to be trained on EpiPen administration per any statutes or guidelines and a lot of people think that the schools all have a school nurse,” she said. “Florida does not require a school to have a nurse.”
She took those findings to State Representative Anna Eskamani (D-Orlando).
“A lot of our educators never have to deal with such a situation until it happens,” Eskamani said.
Eskamani co-introduced HB 65. The bill highlights include requiring school districts statewide to adopt an anaphylaxis policy and providing requirements for the policy, which should include training requirements for school personnel on preventing and responding to an allergic reaction, including anaphylaxis.
The requirements must include training in the use of an epinephrine autoinjector not just for employees, but for a percentage of the staff providing before and after school care. To read the bill text, click here:
“It’s a bare minimum and it’s not being done,” Eskamani said. “We need to hear from more parents to help get it to move through the process to the finish line.”
“I never knew how much politics played into every aspect of our life, but it definitely does,” Sherry said.
Sherry and her son have visited Tallahassee to meet with state legislators, hoping to get them to understand the importance of this bill.
“When I say, children have died from anaphylaxis at school, they’re like, in Florida?” Sherry recalls from her conversations with some lawmakers. “I’m like not yet, and they’re like not interested yet. They’re waiting for it to happen in Florida before they’re going to do something about it.”
Broward County Public Schools told NBC6 they were aware of the bill and were monitoring its progress. A spokesperson also said the district offers training to staff that “…includes how to recognize anaphylaxis symptoms and emergency medication administration…” if the school principal asks for it.
The state health department, the state board of education and Miami-Dade County Public Schools did not respond to our request for information. But MDCPS told NBC6 last year they offered education and training to both students and employees, which includes how to administer epinephrine.
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