School Nurses Swamped with Sick Kids

The flu outbreak has a steady flow of kids heading to the nurse's office

The nurse's office at Norristown Area High School, looks more like a hospital emergency room these days. It's overloaded with sick kids.

"We’ve just been seeing students from the beginning of school to the end," said Norristown School Nurse Coordinator Giselle Knoblauch.

"I was just in class and I started to feel like I was going to throw up, started feeling nauseous," said Philip Clemson, student.

Many students are being sent home after heading to the nurse's office with symptoms of the flu.

“Before our Christmas break we were starting to see a lot of students with flu-like illnesses,” said Knoblauch.

School nurses have been emailing families about proper hand washing, sanitizing, and the best way to cover a sneeze. They hope this advice will help stop the spread of flu germs.

“We have Purell dispensers throughout the building and we always talk to our students about washing hands. And when they cough, how they have to cover their mouths and cough into the elbow,” said Knoblauch.

In Pennsylvania, there have been 23 flu deaths.  New Jersey only tracks the number of pediatric deaths from the flu and they report two deaths since flu season began -- a teenager from Ocean County and an 8-month-old baby from Camden.

There have been no flu deaths reported in Delaware.

Contact Us