-Meet Our New School Nurse

By: Kiendra B.

Charlotte Amalie High School’s loss is now Ivanna Eudora Kean High School’s gain. After serving 15 years at C.A.H.S., Ms. Ruth E. Dalmida is now the new school nurse at I.E.K.H.S. She came to Kean at the beginning of the 2011-12 school year and may be staying here for a long time.

“I was never interested in being a nurse at first, but after working in a hospital and taking care of people, I decided to study nursing,” said Ms. Dalmida. She started studying nursing in 1965. She attended Stony Brook University in New York, also Long Island University and a community college in New York. She earned degrees from all three. In 1973, Ms. Dalmida officially became a licensed nurse.

If you haven’t met Ms.Dalmida as yet, she is about 5 feet 4 inches tall and usually wears white shoes, white pants, and a white crocheted hat.

“She is very nice and very helpful, because when I needed assistance for my belly cramps, she sent me to lay down with a heating pad on my stomach to help ease my pain,” said sophmore Tamika Dyer.

Although Ms. Dalmida does anything she can to meet students’ needs, she does not believe in giving students pills for pain relief. Ms. Dalmida thinks that if you are given a pill every time for pain, “At your young age you can become addicted.”

“Ms. Dalmida is doing a wonderful job so far. Ms.Dias is very relieved from all the work she used to do by herself,” said junior Rena James.

“It’s been hell dealing with all the students’ problems and situations by myself,” said Ms. Dias with a smile.

Ms. Dalmida’s daily routine of her job is to assess students’ complaints, interview them, counsel them, and treat them. She takes the health of her students’ very seriously. Sometimes Ms. Dalmida has some difficult days because it’s hard to make students accept therapy other than drugs.

Ms Dalmida wants students to be as healthy as they can. “Students should drink lots of water, get at least eight hours of sleep every night and eat a well balanced breakfast,” suggested Ms. Dalmida.