Question: Sick Roommates and Your Child's Health

The call comes late at night, jangling you awake, perhaps, and making you frantic too. But this time, it's not your child who's sick, it's his girlfriend, her boyfriend or a roommate that's sick. Your child doesn't know what to do. And now you're worried about your child's health too. What if it's swine flu or something similarly contagious?

Answer:

You can use the same "3 Steps to Take When Your College Kid Gets Sick" approach for your child's beau or roommate, but there are several other issues here.

First, you want to make sure that your child doesn't get sick too. Second, you don't know the roommate's health history and tendencies. And third, another family needs to get involved too. So here's a 4-step approach for roommate health issues:

1. First, calm your child and verify that the roommate or friend's breathing is fine, that he's conscious, and that he's not, for example, bleeding badly. If any of those things are an issue, your child needs to summon immediate emergency help - dial 911 and summon an R.A., in that order. (And 911 calls are best made from a land line, not a cell phone.)
2. Then, assess what the symptoms are and what's worrying your child. Some kids panic over their sweetheart's mildest discomfort or 99.5-degree fever. But if this seems to be more extreme, your child should call an R.A. or campus student health services, which will have the roommate's health records and can advise what to do next. If the friend needs to be seen at the student health center or a hospital, your child or the RA should accompany him. The roommate or beau may need moral and physical support, and it's always helpful to have someone there to jot down the doctor's instructions.

1. But if this appears to be the highly contagious H1N1 virus, for example, or some raging infection, your child needs to protect himself too. He should wash his hands thoroughly and often, refrain from using glasses or cups his friend has used, etc. And he should plan to sleep elsewhere - bunk with a friend down the hall, for example. Some colleges have set up quarantine areas for kids stricken with this new influenza or "swine flu." Others have set up temporary housing to keep healthy roommates out of contagion's way. That doesn't mean your child can't still offer support. He can deliver meals, for example, or carry messages to professors, but he should keep his distance and remember to wash his hands after every encounter.
2. And finally, if this is a serious illness or injury, it would be a kindness to the other family to keep them informed. Colleges and hospitals are bound by privacy laws - they cannot divulge details without the patient's consent, and how strictly they interpret those terms depends on the institution. One college dean told us parents during orientation, "If there's an ambulance or arresting police officer involved, I'm calling you. I don't care if it's 2 a.m. And I don't care what the law says. Your family can sue me later." His remarks were met with cheers. Not all schools have that attitude, of course. If your child's friend is too ill, too hurt or in too much distress to call his family, encourage your child to make the call. After all, you'd want to know, wouldn't you?