Asthma in primary school children in Australia

Running head: ASTHMA IN PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN IN AUSTRALIA
Asthma in primary school children in Australia
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1ASTHMA IN PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN IN AUSTRALIA
Name of the topic that will be reviewed:
Asthma in primary school children in Australia
Asthma policies regarding school children in Australia
Early stage of children’s life provides groundwork for their future development, well-
being and health. 1 out of 10 Australian children is diagnosed with asthma and it is one of the
most common reasons for their visit to hospital (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare
2018). Presently, asthma has no cure. In this regard, Australian government and several
individual state have endorsed several policies for the prevention and well-being of children
suffering from asthma. Some of those policies are discussed below.
National Asthma Strategy 2018
The aim of this policy is to lessen the impacts of asthma in social, economic, and
health aspects and optimization of asthma management and diagnosis. Main focus of this
strategy is to better management of people suffering from asthma. This strategy follows eight
guiding principles regarding future actions related to chronic respiratory condition and
asthma. These eight guiding principle are equity for every Australians including aboriginals,
partnerships and collaboration, access, person centred approach, evidence based approach,
sustainability, transparency and accountability, and shared responsibility (National Asthma
Strategy 2018 2018).
New South Wales Government guideline for acute management of asthma
This policy aims to guide clear direction to all medical practitioner to provide best
possible service in every part of the state. This policy was created by clinical experts for the
NSW Department of Health. This is a guideline for suitable tactic for the management of
acute asthma in children and infants. This policy is basically a guide but not a strict

2ASTHMA IN PRIMARY SCHOOL CHILDREN IN AUSTRALIA
authoritative protocol. This protocol is also placed in all the local clinical facilities and
hospitals to manage better and assess paediatric asthma patients which will be implemented
by the chief executives (Infants and Children - Acute Management of Asthma 2012).
Asthma Guidelines for Victorian schools by the Asthma Foundation, Victoria
Almost 90 percent of all government school in Victoria have a child enrolled who is
diagnosed with asthma. As asthma has no cure as of now, the effective ways to prevent
asthma are awareness, education and planning. This policy was developed to help the schools
with asthma student for better support and planning. This guidelines include detailed
information on preventive strategies, medical data regarding asthma, staff training,
communication plan, management policy for asthma, emergency asthma equipment, risk
management, and legal obligation for school. According to this guidelines, all school must
have adequate amount of emergency kit stored (Education.vic.gov.au 2018).
South Australia Clinical Guideline
This program was introduced by South Australia Child Health Clinical Network and
sanctioned by South Australia Health Safety & Strategic Governance Committee. This is a
fresh policy but updated and replaced an existing policy known as Management of Acute
Asthma in Children, WCH Guideline. Similarly like the previous policy, this policy also
mainly targeted at healthcare professionals working at any primary care, regional or general
hospitals. The goal of this guideline is to provide information about the minimum
requirement and assessment needed for management of acute asthma. This guideline applies
to all the health network inside South Australia. This guideline also excludes some scenario
which might need to manage differently than general such as infants under the age of 1 year
and patients with life threatening asthma admitted in ICU (Sahealth.sa.gov.au 2018).
Greenvale Primary School Asthma Policy