School healthcare services in Hellas The position of school nurse

Knowledge of the historical evolution of a discipline is indispensable for understanding and keeping up to date with contemporary events and tendencies for the determination of an appropriate strategy. The present article aims to investigate school nurse’s role and to compare theory to practice for fulfilling essential school nursing in Hellas. Therefore, the subject of school nursing and school nurse’s role are initially being presented through their theoretical basis on international bibliographic data and on modern tendencies, while furthermore the article presents the historical evolution of hellenic school healthcare services as well as the existing problematic elements. Today, in hellenic public schools school nursing profession based on legislation exists only in schools of special education, while for the part of private schools there is no law. Although school nurses of special education exist for twenty years there are still many problems for the establishment of school nursing. Also school health services do not generally present coordinated efforts, but detached ones. Thus, it is imperative for nurses to act with strategy and to claim appropriate roles within the educational system so much in the government institutions as in the private ones.