PACOIMA : Joint School Health Care Effort Planned
The Los Angeles Unified School District and county health officials are launching a joint effort at a Pacoima elementary school to make basic health care more available to children.
The Child Health Demonstration Project, which will offer vaccinations and basic medical services, is scheduled to start next Monday at Telfair Avenue School. The campus is the second in the district to offer the program and only the third in Los Angeles County.
A nurse with extra training in pediatrics will be at Telfair once a week to provide physicals and immunizations for the children, said Pam Wagner, the district’s coordinator of student health-service projects. The nurse, working with the county’s Mid-Valley Comprehensive Health Center in Van Nuys, also will prescribe medication for such conditions as ear infections and common skin ailments.
Wagner said the program, sponsored by the district and the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, was designed to grant easier access to basic health care for children in underserved areas.
“We hope this will be a win-win situation for both the school district and health department” by reducing school absenteeism and by reducing the number of children who enter the county health system, Wagner said.
The other project sites are Murchison Street School in East Los Angeles and Furgeson Elementary School in Hawaiian Gardens.
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