School-based health centers essential to schools since they are the very essence that keeps the child safe most of the time. The school nurse or doctor does more than tender to the students’ knee injury. They keep the children healthy by making sure that students get the required dosage of medication for certain ailments such as diabetes, asthma or other chronic diseases that need much attention.
The service that these School-based health centers provides does not stop on the above condition since there are times when they are, also, providing service for dental and mental-health of the students.
For those schools located in urban areas, school-based health centers can not be seen regularly. There are an estimated 133,000 schools across the country have them. The funding comes from several sources as the school does not have the money for the service.
Most of the time, school-based health centers, give the caring that a regular pediatrician to their clients.
In an effort to help the urban school, the government created the 2010 healthcare law that would add more funds for school-based health centers. The first grants — totaling $95 million for 278 centers — got declared this summer, wherein around $105 million will soon follow. The money will help reinforce the school’s funding so that they could give their students the medical and dental care that they needed.
Veda Johnson, longtime advocate for school-based health centers and director of the Urban Health Program at Atlanta’s Emory University says people get to see things that they can not see in private doctor’s office once a parent brought their child to the facility.
Dr. Robert Murray said that, over the years, there are pediatricians that expressed worry that the clinics could cause misunderstandings in the relationships of parents and children that may lead to fragmented care. Murray already served as chairman of the Council on School Health for the American Academy of Pediatrics. However, there are some kids, who go through school-based health centers that do not have connections to healthcare provider.
For some of the kids, who got emotionally attached to the school nurse. They get treatment even before they move to another school.
This is the reason why four elementary school clinics managed by HEALS (Health Establishments at Local Schools) in Huntsville, Ala. The school had started a program that allows a former student to visit at the beginning of the school year, so that clinic staff members could keep caring for former students. Even right after leaving elementary school, the children keep going back to the school to get a checkup until they reach the age of 19.