Hoover High to Open Clinic With $40,000 - Education: Plans for health center, which trustees must OK, back on track after 2-year delay.

Hoover High School has received a total of $40,000 from two foundations to open its long-planned health clinic and will ask the Board of Education for final approval Oct. 22 to begin operations in January, it was learned Thursday.

The money will help pay for a nurse-practitioner and a doctor from Children’s Hospital & Health Center of San Diego to operate a primary care clinic, Hoover Principal Doris Alvarez confirmed Thursday. A counseling center also will open at the same time.

Half of the funds are from the Parker Foundation of San Diego and half from a foundation that donated anonymously, Alvarez said.

Plans for the controversial clinic, first approved in concept by trustees in May, 1989, have been stalled while the school has searched for funds.

The board in its 1989 vote stipulated that no district money be used to operate the clinic, which would serve the many Hoover students in East San Diego whose families have neither government assistance nor private insurance to help pay for basic medical care, and therefore often go without preventive treatment.

Schools Supt. Tom Payzant and his top administrators approved final plans Monday. Payzant said Thursday he expects “a favorable climate” when the issue comes before trustees.

Three of the trustees--Susan Davis, Ann Armstrong and Shirley Weber--voted for the concept in 1989 over fierce opposition, largely from the Catholic Diocese of San Diego, which feared that such a clinic would provide birth-control counseling, at the least, and abortion referrals, in the extreme. New trustee Sue Braun also has voiced support for school-based clinics. Fellow new member John De Beck has previously said he opposes them.

In an effort to meet the diocese halfway, the Hoover parent-teacher committee planning the clinic decided earlier this year that the clinic would offer no contraceptives and would provide no abortion- or family-planning counseling.

But Rosemary Johnston, director of the diocese’s Office for Human Life and Development, said Thursday that the church still cannot support the plan because students requesting help in family-planning matters might be given a list of off-campus agencies that include groups that give abortion or contraceptive counseling. Such a list is now given districtwide to students who approach school nurses for referral options.

“We regret that we cannot support the (clinic) plan, because it is a superior proposal to that” previously proposed by the school district, Johnston said. In contrast to the vehement opposition and boycotts led by the late diocesan Bishop Leo T. Maher, the church now will not actively fight the clinic by mounting a “major campaign” against it, she said.

“I think Catholic students (at Hoover) should be encouraged to use it” consistent with Catholic teachings if trustees approve it, Johnston said, noting that there is a need in the East San Diego area to provide basic medical care to people unable to afford it on their own.

“I will . . . speak on behalf of the diocese,” Johnston said, adding that Catholic lay activists who oppose any kind of school-based health clinic will be free to speak against the clinic on their own before city schools trustees.

Payzant said Thursday that, although he regrets the diocese position of nonsupport, “I cannot allow an outside organization to dictate to a public agency what should be on a list of referrals that schools supply.”

Payzant said the time for a clinic is long overdue.

“We have more evidence than ever about the need and, unfortunately, San Diego is not a leader in this area but lags way behind other school districts in this regard,” he said, referring to the many school-based clinics that already exist in Los Angeles, San Jose, Houston and other urban areas across the nation.

Children’s Hospital spokesman Mark Morelli said Thursday that the hospital will provide a school nurse-practitioner during the week under the supervision of a Children’s Hospital physician. That will allow the nurse to provide treatment, order lab tests and carry out other medical procedures. Regular school nurses are not allowed to treat most maladies, or to even dispense aspirin.

Alvarez, the Hoover principal, said about $10,000 of the money will go toward paying the doctor’s salary and liability insurance. Another portion of the money will pay for a computer system to allow the hospital to qualify as many students as possible for Medi-Cal reimbursement, which could help make the clinic self-sustaining.

The new counseling center will include SAY San Diego, a group to help students prone to violence and gang involvement; the Family Services Assn., which works with families on child, alcohol and drug abuse; and its Mid-City Diversion Project, which helps keep teen-agers out of the police and juvenile justice system.

Jerry Moss, a Hoover parent who heads the parent-teacher planning group for the clinic, said Thursday, “Our main concern has always been for the health of the kids, and that’s why we’ve been able to stay focused and get as far as we have.

“We’d like to have total community support, and I welcome all the opponents to come and visit, to see that we are talking about basic health care, to deal with real concerns and needs, and not about passing out contraceptives or giving abortion referrals.

“This is not a win-lose situation. It’s a win-win situation for the kids.”