Accident/Illness
In case of serious accident or illness, the School Nurse should be contacted. Generally, the child should not be moved until professional help arrives. The Nurse should administer first aid even in the case of minor injuries. If a child is suffering from an indisposition that makes it impossible for her to attend class, the School Nurse should contact the parents. Only the designated person in each school or the School Nurse should call parents, never the student herself. Routine health problems should be brought to the Nurse at break time and lunch time, not during classes. Standard recommended OCA procedures should always be followed when attending to a sick or injured person.
With regard to communicable diseases, Duchesne will endeavor to follow the recommendations in the Report of the Committee on Infectious Diseases of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Some diseases are classified as highly infectious. Such diseases may be transmitted from one person to another without physical contact. Examples are chicken pox, tuberculosis, measles. A student who has been diagnosed as having a highly infectious disease must be excluded from all school activities until the appropriate medical authority asserts that the person is no longer contagious.
In the case of a student who develops a highly infectious disease that is in its infectious stage, either the student or parent/guardian must inform the Headmistress. The Headmistress may seek discussion or counsel with the School Nurse, a physician or members of the School administration but will divulge names only on a "need to know" basis and, except in extenuating circumstances, only with the prior consent of the person involved.
Some less infectious, but, nevertheless, very serious diseases are transmitted only through intimate physical contact or through bodily fluids. Among such "low infective" diseases are HIV (human immunodeficiency virus), AIDS, and hepatitis B and C viruses.
In the case of a low infectious disease in one of its members, the School shall seek and follow medical advice about how to serve responsibly both the individual and the community.
The School shall not discriminate against any student on the ground that the person has a communicable disease. No student of the School shall be denied access to school facilities or activities on the ground that they have a communicable disease. The School reserves the right, however, to exclude a student with a communicable disease from school facilities or programs, if the School makes a medically-based determination that the person constitutes a threat to the health or safety of others.
