LIFE AND DEATH FOR TEENS
A comprehensive school health clinic is making all the difference in the lives of kids who otherwise might not get the care they need, writes Cherie Howie.
Her face was getting bigger and her airway getting smaller when Manaia King went to Catriona Lawler, the nurse and manager of her new school’s health clinic.
She’d just started at Otahuhu College after moving to Auckland from Rotorua and now she discovered, in the worst way possible, that she was “allergic to nature”.
It’s the kind of situation that after the fact can spark a giggle — discovering stuff that is all around us, that sustains us, can kill. At the time, it couldn’t have been more serious.
King didn’t know it, but her life was in danger. But she didn’t have to wait for an ambulance, or make a fast trip to hospital in a teacher’s car. Help was right there. Literally, right there.
Because Otahuhu College is one of 174 New Zealand high schools, teen parent units and alternative education facilities that offer free on-site health services.
Tucked deep inside the grounds, behind the South Auckland school’s imposing brick frontage and towering palms, sit a couple of humble yellow prefabs. Inside, students can see a doctor, nurse, social worker or physio for free — and they did 6028 times last year.
The students come for a variety of reasons, but there’s no doubt the Health and Wellness Centre, staffed by part and fulltime staff, has saved lives.
Now in her final year at the school, 17-year-old King still remembers the fear and relief she felt the day her life was saved.
“Catriona came in with some injections. I got the adrenaline, then I got a blanket, [and] they had given me an asthma pump because I couldn’t breathe on my own. And then I went in the ambulance.
“It was very scary, but I was glad that I knew someone was at our school who knew what to do because I didn’t know what was wrong with me, besides that I was allergic to something.”
She isn’t sure what she’d have done if not for the centre — maybe run home for help, which sounds like an entirely bad idea for someone experiencing a lifethreatening allergic reaction.
Instead, by the time the centre’s parttime GP Fionna Bell arrived, Lawler had saved King’s life.
“The anaphylaxis was full blown. She was struggling to breathe. But Catriona did an amazing job,” Bell says.
When someone can’t breathe properly, and they’re given medicine to make it better, it is obvious their life has been saved. That’s the pointy end of frontline teen healthcare.
But there’s so much more.