The Real Issue Is Students’ Health

Three years ago, when the San Diego city schools considered establishing a health clinic at a high school, the debate drowned in a sea of protests from the Roman Catholic Church and from some narrow-minded parents who objected to the possibility that the clinic might dispense birth-control information or devices.

The birth-control controversy clouded the real issue: that thousands of children do without needed health care because their parents don’t have the money or the time or the motivation to provide it.

The clinic idea has come up again, as part of a broad-based effort to find better ways to meet the health and social service needs of students. This time, we hope the school board keeps the birth-control concern in proper perspective.

A look at the experience of three privately funded high school clinics in Los Angeles should make that easier. It shows that both the children’s needs for medical care and the parents’ rights to guide that care can be protected.

This has been done with consent forms that allow the parents to specify which services their children may receive. The forms are verified either by telephone or in person. At one of the three schools, Jordan High School in Watts, 1,300 of the school’s 1,700 students have parental permission to use the clinic.

Overall, 51% of the students have consent forms. Of those, 92% are allowed to receive full services; 63%--or 2,246 students--have used the clinics at least once in the first 18 months of operation.

How do those students use the clinic?

* 48% of the visits are for general medical services, such as treatment for injuries or illnesses, immunizations and physicals.

* 45% are for mental health counseling for such problems as anxiety, depression, chemical dependency and physical or emotional abuse.

* 16% involve reproductive health services such as pregnancy testing, treatment of sexually transmitted diseases and birth-control information or devices. Abortion is discussed with students who ask about it, but clinic staff members do not make referrals to abortion clinics.

* 16% of the cases involve health education, including weight management, family planning, abstinence education and ways to avoid violence.

In San Diego, what is being explored is establishing a clinic at or near Hoover High School in East San Diego. Hoover has 1,800 students, a large percentage of whom come from low-income, single-parent families that move often.

Last year, the school nurse handled 1,000 cases a month. She says many of the children she saw virtually supported themselves and had to arrange for their own health care, which often meant they went without.

These are high-risk children--children whose education and future is jeopardized by lack of access to health care.

The group of educators, city and county administrators trying to find ways to better provide that care calls itself New Beginnings. It is just that.

This “new beginning” deserves the full support of the community and the Board of Education. It should not be derailed by narrow-minded concerns about birth control.

The health of thousands of children is at stake.