To investigate how school nurses can help to improve the health and study motivation for school children, Dr Regina Lee, Assistant Professor of PolyU's School of Nursing, has conducted a survey involving all local primary and secondary schools in May 2011. Over 80% of respondents agreed to have a school nurse in school and over 90% thought that school nurses can do a better job in promoting health education. Some schools also responded that they have encountered difficulties in carrying out school health policies.
Dr Lee remarked, "In order to effectively implement school health policies, health education in schools should be carefully designed and executed by professionals with expertise in this area. We advocate the 'one school, one nurse' policy. We suggest the Education Bureau and Food and Health Bureau to work together in empowering school nurses to take up the leadership role in implementing school health policies."
Earlier on, the School of Nursing has invited TWGHs Wong See Sum Primary School to participate in a school nurse project and a weight management programme. Participating teachers, students and parents all agreed that the school nurse has served an important role in the roll-out of the programme and has contributed to providing health information, changing the students' lifestyle, offering basic nursing care and reducing students' consumption of junk food.
Dr Lee started qualitative research on "The role of school nurses in delivering accessible health services for primary and secondary students in Hong Kong" in 2007. The roles of the profession were found to be described as health providers, counselors, leaders, promoters, collaborators, referrers and administrators and housekeepers. The roles identified were of wide diversification and many are quite ambiguous. Another research conducted between 2009 and 2010 showed that, due to the constraints in work hours and schools' management structures, only 25% of the responding school nurses viewed that "health educator" is a key role of them.
The profession of school nurse emerged in America a century ago and has further developed in countries like Japan, Korea and Taiwan for several decades. However, in Hong Kong, there are only some 100 school nurses serving mainly in private schools, special schools and international schools. Almost all mainstream local schools do not have school nurse stationing on campus. In view of this, the Hong Kong School Health Enhancement Consortium under the School of Nursing has been collaborating closely with the Hong Kong School Nurse Association to assist local schools in promoting health education.
Nowadays, parents and the public are very much concerned about the physical and mental health of school children as well as the effectiveness of school health policies, especially problems in new infectious diseases, obesity, drugs and substance abuse. Originally, the roles of school nurses are limited to taking care of sick students and offering treatment advice to parents. As time goes by, in 2008, the National Association of School Nurses in America re-defined school nursing as a specialized area in nursing. Apart from offering nursing care and treatment to students, school nurses should also care about the physical and mental development of students and intervene with assistance when necessary. In addition, school nurses can work with other professionals to help promote the personal growth of school children.
*****
