Utah has more school nurses than ever - but the workload has grown, too

SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — Historically, Utah has lagged behind other states when it comes to the ratio of school nurses to students. A deluge of new money is helping to boost their numbers, but at 1 nurse per 2,700 students, Utah still trails in the nation.

Last year, Utah school nurses administered life-saving drugs like anti-seizure medication and epinephrine to students more than 60 times.

Retired pediatrician Dr. Bill Cosgrove says that Utah’s school nurses are overwhelmed with the addition of COVID-19 duties to their already excessive workloads.

“Right now there is a whole ripple effect of more complications, just because we’re dealing with a deadly pathogen,” Cosgrove says.

In Canyons School District, spokesman Jeff Haney says that last month, school nurses tested 80 students for COVID-19 over a five-day period.

Thanks to federal CARES act money, relief funds meant as aid during the pandemic, many schools have bumped up their nursing staff. In Davis County, the school district was able to increase its number of full-time nurses from 14 to 29.

Davis County school nurse Tamara Singleton says that many of her colleagues have had to drop all their regular duties in order to oversee rapid COVID testing and contact tracing.

Another shot in the arm for Utah’s school nurses is a $27 million dollar infusion of funding from the state legislature, which can be used to hire nurses or mental health professionals.

In general, the number of licensed nurses in Utah schools has grown from 131 in 2018 to 202 today. It’s two steps forward. Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic all but erases those gains.