PIERRE – Currently in South Dakota, the state activities association requires that students who participate sign a form that allows the school access to their medical records. A bill that would squash that requirement failed Monday in the S.D. House of Representatives.
HB1104 would take away that requirement in an effort to protect the medical records of students, according to the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Julie Frye-Mueller, R-Rapid City.
“It’s so overreaching for medical information on a child,” Frye-Mueller said of the current form used by the South Dakota High School Activities Association. “In order to just participate, you have to sign away your private medical records.”
Frye-Mueller noted that the disclosure applies far beyond athletics. “This is not just sports,” she said. “This is debate. This is choir.”
Rep. Paul Miskimins, R-Mitchell, said athletic trainers opposed the bill because it would keep them from informing coaches about a student’s injury. Miskimins said if a wrestler had ringworm, the trainer would be unable to tell the coach about it, causing the wrestler to infect his opponents.
Frye-Mueller said she was made aware of the medical information disclosure by concerned parents.
“This is something that’s not going to go away,” Fry-Mueller said. “We have got to care about these kids’ privacy.”
The bill was defeated on a vote of 22-46.
