Re: ADD and Ritalin - Ma

There was a question yesterday about what do with medicine that a kid brings
on a campout or to summer camp. I reviewed the BSA publication "Guide to
Safe Scouting" for any policies or procedures for this situation and could
find nothing. Some summer camps have a policy that any medicine should be
turned over to the health lodge and the kid sent there at the times he is to
take it, overs have requested that the kid or the Scoutmaster keep it in the
Troop site unless it is required that it be maintained in a cool place.

I had a bad experience one time with a ADD kid shareing his Ritalin medicine
with his tent mate. Since that time, I have in general made it a practice to
keep all medicine of that type myself and giving it to the kid in accordance
with the instructions from the parents. Of course, very likely we have all
had parents that did not inform us that their kid was taking medicine and
sent it along with the kid.

Very likely the worst scare I have ever had as a Scout leader was one time a
kid awakened me in the middle of the night and told me that his tent mate
was dieing. When I saw the kid, I was not sure that he wasn't dieing also.
It turned out that the kid, that was new and this was his first campout, had
asthma and had lost his adrenaline inhaler. I got the rest of the Troop up
and told them to go over ever inch of ground where we had been the day
before and to find that inhaler and they did after 30 or 40 minutes. Since
that time I have been a lot more carefull about trying to find out that type
of information on new kids.

I hope we all learn from out mistakes, and perhaps it will keep someone else
from making the same mistake if we pass along the information we have
learned the hard way.

Olan Watkins

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