Parents threaten High Court: "Immediately freeze the pilot for replacing medical assistants"

The Ya'el association - counseling and guidance for food allergies, sent a sharp letter today, Wednesday, to Minister of Education Yoav Kisch and his ministry's management, demanding to immediately freeze the pilot in which school nurses are expected to replace medical assistants in some educational institutions. The association warns that if a substantive response to their demands is not received by August 30, they are expected to file an urgent petition to the High Court.

The letter, sent through the association's legal counsel, Adv. Gilad Bar Tal, comes following Walla's exposure of the new pilot. As part of the program, approved by the Ministries of Education and Health, nurses will be placed in ten elementary schools across the country as early as September. The nurses are supposed to replace the educational assistants accompanying students for medical supervision, and simultaneously provide health services to all students in the school.

The association demands that the Ministry of Education commit in writing that no child currently eligible for a medical assistant will be left without the medical and environmental response they receive. In addition, they demand to hold an urgent working meeting with the participation of representatives of the association and the Ministries of Education and Health before the pilot gets underway.

"In our view, the move constitutes an experiment on our children, even without obtaining our consent," the association claimed. They further warned: "The association has no intention of coming to terms with dangerous and irresponsible actions. We will act in every legal way available to us, as far as we are required to do so."

The pilot that will begin as early as September

As revealed this week on Walla, the "institutional nurse" model is expected to operate during the upcoming school year in ten elementary schools. Four nurses will be allocated to schools in the Haifa and Jerusalem districts, four more to schools in the central region, and two in areas where the Ministry of Health operates the service directly. Each nurse is expected to work about 30 hours a week, five working days. Alongside the pilot, a study will be conducted to examine the possibility of making the model a permanent part of the education system.

The program is intended for schools where there are at least three students in need of medical assistance and currently employ at least three full-time educational assistants for the purpose of providing the response. The nurse is supposed to treat, among other things, students with life-threatening allergies, epilepsy, and diabetes, provide first aid to all students, and train the educational teams. Students in need of invasive medical treatments will not be included in the program at this stage and will continue to receive the existing response.

More than 8,000 students are eligible for assistance due to allergies

Behind the move is a sharp increase in the number of children eligible for medical assistance in the education system. According to the data published on Walla, the number of those eligible for a medical assistant has jumped 20-fold in 15 years. 8,339 students are eligible for assistance due to food allergy alone - about 81% of all those eligible. In the 5785 school year, the Ministry of Education allocated about 635 million shekels for funding medical assistants, of which about 523 million are for children with food allergies.

Alongside the opposition of the Ya'el association, the pilot also receives professional support. The Israel Association of Allergy and Clinical Immunology welcomed the introduction of nurses into schools and argued that the existing assistant model provides a "partial, limited, and unprofessional" response to a limited population, while a school nurse will be able to provide a broader and more professional medical response to all students.