"But government ministries are resistant to change"

 

Someone mentioned to me that government ministries are resistant to change. I responded:

 

The ministry of health certainly allowed the change of privatizing school nurses. 

 

They allowed the change of one nurse for two schools to one nurse to 16 schools.

 

They allowed the change from a nurse who performs much follow up to the nurse who gives one or two chances a year for vaccination and then blames the parents for not keeping up their vaccines. "Let's give responsibility to the parents" the current head nurse said. How are overstressed parents supposed to know what vaccines need completing?

 

Thus, plenty of change has conspired

 

They allowed the change from a nurse who has some free time each day to speak with the school children to the school nurse who has a minimum amount of work to do in a day then move on to another school. 

 

They allowed the change from performing heights and weights in first, third, fifth and seventh grades to just first and seventh.

 

They allowed the change from school nurses being present a week after vaccines, when school nurses were assigned to few schools, to see for themselves if there were side effects from the vaccines, to sending an email to the teachers and secretaries, "please tell us if you see the following side effects". Side effects change, epidemiology changes. How can teachers recognize side effects with all the stress they are under? Perhaps new kinds of side effects are developing that medical professionals would recognize more than teachers do?

 

They allowed the change from having vaccines available for school age children in the local health clinics, every day of the work week, to only being available in schools.

 

They allowed the change from "school nurse" to what is really a "travelling nurse" to what I called, "checkmark nurse" - the nurse who parents never met, calls once a year, and blames the parents for not vaccinating or following up growth checks.

 

She never wrote back.