{"id":112915,"date":"2025-11-03T11:14:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T11:14:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/112915\/"},"modified":"2025-11-03T11:14:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T11:14:17","slug":"should-teachers-be-trained-to-use-epipens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/112915\/","title":{"rendered":"Should teachers be trained to use EpiPens?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Currently it is not a requirement for teachers and school staff to be trained in how to administer an epipen for children with severe allergies.<\/p>\n<p>But should this type of training be mandatory?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Sharon, who is the mother to two children with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newstalk.com\/news\/dublin-pharmacist-praised-after-administering-lifesaving-adrenaline-pens-to-teenager-571563\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">life-threatening allergies<\/a>, said her eldest son was just three months old when he had his first anaphylactic shock.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was actually exclusively breastfeeding, so I decided to give him formula for the first time after three months,\u201d she told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newstalk.com\/shows\/the-hard-shoulder-234864\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Hard Shoulder<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAlmost immediately after giving it to him, he went into anaphylaxis shock at the time, but we were obviously inexperienced and didn\u2019t realise.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe rushed him straight to hospital and thankfully, everything was fine, but we left with a prescription for EpiPens; so he\u2019s carried it with him for nearly 11 years now.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2207332\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/EMHFT8.jpg\" alt=\"A boy using an Epipen in his thigh demonstrating what to do in the event of an anaphylactic shock. \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\"\/> A boy using an Epipen in his thigh demonstrating what to do in the event of an anaphylactic shock. Image: True Images \/ Alamy<\/p>\n<p>Sharon said it is important to highlight that it can \u201cnever be a bad thing\u201d if an EpiPen is unnecessarily administered.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHowever, it <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newstalk.com\/news\/health-minister-considers-wider-availability-of-emergency-epipens-695463\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">could be catastrophic <\/a>if you didn\u2019t give it and they did need it,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m 10 years on this journey, and what I realised starting out was, it was all me.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEvery teacher it was me meeting them, every preschool teacher, camps; it was always explaining to them, meeting them.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cObviously, you\u2019d have the worry of, are they competent on knowing what to do?&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Nothing has changed&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>According to Sharon, since there is no law in place to mandate that teachers are qualified or trained on EpiPen use, she has to explain the process to every teacher or custodian responsible for her children\u2019s care.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFast forward 10 years and I have another child with life-threatening allergies and he\u2019s going to be going to preschool soon,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd I\u2019ve realise, actually, nothing has changed.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll the teachers are still unaware and all preschools and creches still actually don\u2019t have any formal training put in place.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt actually led me to set up Allergy Wise, where I go around to schools here in Cork to teach informally, because enough is enough.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Sharon said a group of mothers known as Allergy Action Ireland is calling on the Government to set up a system of \u201cstandardised clinical support and education in childcare settings.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Main image: A boy using an Epipen in his thigh demonstrating what to do in the event of an anaphylactic shock.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Currently it is not a requirement for teachers and school staff to be trained in how to administer&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112916,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[163,85,46,482],"class_list":{"0":"post-112915","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-medication"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112915","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112915"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112915\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112916"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112915"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112915"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112915"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}