House bill filed seeking to assign more school nurses in public schools

A house bill (HB) seeking to establish a school health and safety office in public schools has been filed to address inadequacy in the nurse to student ratio.
Aangat Tayo Representative Harlin Neil J. Abayon III introduced on June 19, House Bill 7874, “School Health and Safety Act of 2018.”
“At the DepEd (Department of Education), the school nurse to student ratio they are following is 1:5000 and the allocation of school nurse items is not by school, but by school division which means by province or by city,” Mr. Abayon stated in the explanatory note of the bill.
“With this kind of policy, many schools have no school nurses on duty to take charge of the many school health and nutrition activities,” he added. — Charmaine A. Tadalan