When your pediatric patient frequently uses emergency services
I notice you have called 911 (or visited the ER) with [child’s name] several times due to a seizure. Can you tell me about that?
The school staff doesn’t know what to do when [child’s name] has a seizure, so they always call 911, even when I tell them not to and that [child’s name] will be fine.
That sounds frustrating. Safety after a seizure is just as important as safety during a seizure. Sometimes it can be challenging to determine when it is appropriate to stay where you are to recover and when it is safer to call emergency services to help. I don’t think the school is trying to ignore you, they are probably just scared. Did you share the seizure action plan with the school? We included information about how to respond to [child’s name]’s seizures and when a seizure was considered an emergency.
I shared it with them, but I don’t think they looked at it.
There are some school nurse education programs, and some parents speak to staff during staff meetings to provide information about epilepsy and seizure first aid. If you think your school would be open to epilepsy training, I can share some resources with you. I also encourage you to email all the teachers that work directly with [child’s name] to remind them about the needs of your child and include a flyer or link to seizure first aid information as well as a copy of the seizure action plan.