More Children Use School-Based, Mobile Clinics (CO)

September 3, 2010

In Aurora Public Schools, the number of children using mobile and school-based health clinics is dramatically increasing.

Inside Crawford Elementary School, what was once a kindergarten classroom has been converted into a low-cost health clinic.

A nurse practitioner is on staff, ready to help children like Dominic Wood, whose parents don’t have health insurance.

”It is emotional because my son, all kids should have health care,” said Sonja Wood, Dominic’s mother. “I’ve talked to other parents that don’t want to admit they don’t have insurance, that they can’t do something for their kid.”

In the last two years, the number of children using the school-based clinic has doubled.

“If the family has no insurance, they pay a $2 co-pay, and that covers the entire visit,” said Julie Wahlstrom, a pediatric nurse practitioner at Crawford. “The fact that it is in the school is really friendly and really accessible to the families in the community.”

School administrators said it helps them give parents without financial resources a way to make sure their children are vaccinated and have proper medical treatment.

“A lot of times they don’t have access to other sources of medical care, so this is absolutely crucial to a lot of our kids,” said Kyle Conley, the Crawford Elementary School principal.

It has worked so well that in October, Rocky Mountain Youth Clinics is opening a second school-based clinic in Aurora’s Laredo Elementary.

”It’s addressing a huge need in the community,” said Stephanie Wasserman, the director of community and school-based health programs for Rocky Mountain Youth Clinics.

At the Crawford Elementary clinic, Dominic Wood was diagnosed with ADHD and has since been getting the medication he needed.

”It’s made a huge difference in his life,” said his mother. ”These clinics are amazing for Aurora and kids and families that really need it.”

Rocky Mountain Youth Clinics also runs two mobile clinics, and said the number of children it serves has increased by nearly 40 percent in the last year.

Next month, they will be getting a third mobile unit to treat medically underserved children in Aurora and Denver.