Managing a Newcomer's Health Emergency

I think probably one of the most serious incidents where I had to serve as a resource for one of my families involved a new student, and it actually just happened this past school year. I had a new young man who came in. He had a Spanish-language background, but his family had not been in the United States for very long, and his teacher notified me real quickly one morning in a panic that there had been a pill, some medication on the floor, and she had picked it up and asked, “Does anyone know whose this is?” And he took it from her hand and then put it in his mouth and took it. So the nurse was in a panic. The teacher was in a panic. So, I had to get in touch with the mom through a messaging app because she was not able to communicate in English enough for us to get the details of that story.  

And she said, “Oh, that's his epilepsy medicine. He was supposed to take that this morning, but he forgot a bottle of water.” Well, I was in shock because no one knew that he had epilepsy. That was not on any of his intake forms. It had not come up in any conversation whatsoever. So, in my texting conversation with her, I learned that not only did he have epilepsy, but that he had been hospitalized several times in the past for seizures. She let me know that he did not have very many pills left. He only had three pills left because his prescription was over and no one would fill it because she was unable to find him a doctor's appointment that she could afford because he was not an American citizen. He was not eligible for any of the programs that normally help kids get healthcare in my state.  

So that became a very quick hunt to find him an appointment with a local provider that would see him and ensure that there was continuity within the need for that medication. I was able to get him in with our Rural Health Consortium. So, I asked the mom if she would like for me to go, and she was overjoyed that I would be willing to do that, but we were able to get him an appointment, make sure that his medication stayed steady, and also learn more about his health.  In the area where I live, there are no readily available translators, so going to the doctor's office and having a translator, there was just not something that was going to happen.