School clinics foster health of rural kids

Jasper campus puts in center

A new health center located on the Jasper School District campus is expected to help more children see a doctor when they are sick or have a toothache, the superintendent said.

“When a nurse would call that to a parent’s attention, some of them were unable to take off work and immediately take care of the child’s needs,” Superintendent Kerry Saylors said. “They couldn’t take off work or lacked resources to gas up the truck to go to the doctor.”

Renovations are under way inside the foyer of the Jasper School District auditorium to make room for a 2, 200-square-foot schoolbased health center, said Nicole Fairchild, health clinic coordinator for the district. The center will have three exam rooms, a laboratory and a dentistry suite with three chairs.

When the health center opens in late spring, the center will provide the only dentist in Newton County, Fairchild said. The closest dentist to Jasper is 30 minutes away in Harrison, Fairchild said.

Jasper has one medical clinic, but families also see physicians in Harrison and Marshall.

Going to the doctor means that “They’re going to miss at least half a day of school,” said Teresa Hat-field, mother to six adopted children, ages 5 to 17, and two foster children.

Hatfield and husband Toby Hatfield, a teacher, coach and dean of students for Jasper, moved to Jasper from Clinton in May. Teresa Hatfield continues to take her children to see a physician in Clinton, a two-hour drive. She looks forward to the new center.

“It will make a huge difference, just in the money we would save in gas driving to and from the doctor,” she said.

The pediatrician in Clinton will continue to serve as her children’s primary-care physician, but the doctor can refer the children to the school-based health center, Hatfield said.

Fairchild explained that the goal is not to keep sick children at school but to get them to a doctor sooner. Parents will have to sign consent forms for their children to be seen at the school-based health center, she said.

The district hopes to increase the number of children who are behind on annual checkups, she said. Mental-health services also will be provided through the center.

Fairchild said she hopes easier access to health care will result in fewer absences, contribute to increased academic achievement and ultimately higher graduation rates.

Three new school-based health centers are being developed this year, in the Jasper, Lamar and Prairie Grove school districts, said Tamara Baker, school-based health center adviser for the state Department of Health. School-based health centers are a project of the health department and the state Department of Education.

The Lamar School District’s on-site health center will provide medical services twice a week. It will open some time after spring break in a renovated building that once housed a day care, Lamar Superintendent Roy Hester said. He envisions the center eventually providing medical services five days a week and offering dental and eye-care services.

Hester said school officials were concerned that too many children were not receiving annual checkups and preventive screenings.

“We’re still going to have our school nurses,” he said. “We want to try to get these kids who are not being served at all and ward off some childhood diseases.”

About 1,200 students attend the Lamar School District in Johnson County, and 70 percent of them qualify for free and reduced-price meals, an indication that many students are from lowincome families.

Health-care providers will bill ARKids First, an state insurance program for more than 70,000 low-income children, and health-insurance plans, but children can receive services even if their parents are unable to pay for them, Hester said.

The idea is to keep children healthy and to keep them in school, Hester said.

Lamar School District encompasses 300 square miles, and the closest physicians and dentists are in Clarksville and Russellville, Hester said. Clarksville is about six miles from the campus, and Russellville is about 20 miles away.

When a child becomes ill at school, with strep throat for example, a school nurse will call a parent to pick up the child, Hester said. The parent often must leave work, drive to the school and then drive the child to the doctor. The doctor might write a prescription, with parent and child then driving somewhere else to fill the prescription before going home.

“It’s an all-day affair,”Hester said.

Since 2010, 11 school-based health centers have opened, and they serve about 3,000 children, Baker said. The first three centers opened in Fayetteville, Lavaca and Springdale.

“It saves on missing school,” Baker said. “We want them to feel good and catch things early.”

School districts apply for grant funding that comes from a tobacco excise tax established in 2009, Baker said. Grants amount to about $500,000 over a five-year period, with each center receiving $150,000 the first year and decreasing amounts the next four years.

The grant application requires that school districts demonstrate strong support from the administration,school board and community, Baker said. The program requires a school nurse to be on campus.

“It really works well in places where there’s no other provider or the students just can’t get to the provider,” Baker said.

Jasper schools serve 890 students from a 615-squaremile area. Though some families are wealthy, nearly three-quarters of the district’s students are from lowincome families, Saylors said. Some families live an hour away from larger cities, such as Clarksville, Huntsville and Harrison, he said.

“It’s going to greatly impact the physical and mental health of our students that for one reason or the other in the past were not receiving those services,” Saylor said.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 15 on 12/23/2012

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