Mike Buffington's opinion on Oconee County School epilepsy lawsuit

There’s an interesting lawsuit involving the neighboring Oconee County School System and a child who has epilepsy in that system. The school system is fighting an order that it provide an aide to an epilepsy patient who can administer a Diastat treatment should the child have a seizure while on a bus or school field trip.
Oconee County school officials need to wake up and do the right thing here. Other area school system leaders need to hear this message too.
I’m the parent of a son who began having seizures at age 6. I’ve given him Diastat injections hundreds and hundreds of times over the last 13 years. It’s a life-saving treatment for epilepsy patients (children and adults) who have bad seizures that could kill them.
A Diastat isn’t a fancy device. It’s a rectal injection designed for layman use by parents, caregivers, school teachers and others. It doesn’t take much training — maybe 30 seconds to show someone how to use it.
And it can be used anywhere. I’ve given it to my son on airplanes, the side of the road, in the car seat, in the rain, and in hundreds of other places. That’s what its designed for — critical care use anywhere, anytime. 
I had to Diastat my son last Saturday night. It’s a routine part of life for him.
For some reason, however, Oconee school officials are reluctant to have anyone in the system trained on the simple device when that child on a bus. They reportedly had a policy of just calling 911 and waiting on an ambulance.
Which is stupid. By the time an ambulance arrives to help some seizure patients, the patient could be dead (not all seizure patients are that bad, but some are prone to status seizures that can kill.) 
That’s why the Diastat was created by the medical community in the first place — to have a layman or parent take action to save a life before professional medical care arrives. It was designed to be used by non-medical people.

When my son was in the Jefferson City School System, we never had a problem with officials being responsive to using a Diastat, or making sure he was taken care of. Teachers gave him the Diastat several times. It was no big deal. System officials understood the serious nature of his condition and did everything they could to make sure his safety and health came first. 
So I’m amazed that a progressive school system like Oconee, one of the top academic school systems in the state, is living in the Dark Ages when it comes to looking after the health of a one of its epilepsy students. 
Children don’t choose to have seizures and epilepsy. It’s a terrible thing to endure and heart-breaking for all involved.
In a school setting, epilepsy children are dependent on those around them to make sure they are safe if they have a seizure happen. It’s not something they control. No child wants to have a seizure at school, or on a school bus, or in the lunchroom.
If that means showing a teacher or bus driver or aide how to use a simple Diastat, then so be it. No need to call 911 or wait around while a child chokes to death just because uninformed school leaders are more worried about liability and “procedure” than they are the life of a child.
All school systems in the area need to get better informed about how to deal with students who have epilepsy. 
The state forces students to attend school and local school districts should exercise some common sense when it comes to meeting critical medical needs with epilepsy patients.

Mike Buffington is co-publisher of Mainstreet Newspapers, Inc. He can be reached at mike@mainstreetnews.com.

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