LA HABRA : School Health Clinic Offers Low-Cost Care

David Rodriguez bawled and bawled until Judith Leonard, a pediatric nurse practitioner, finished wrapping his burned hand in gauze.

The 1-year-old boy was the second patient to visit the new health clinic that opened Monday at Las Lomas Elementary School.

After burning his hand on an iron, David’s mother, Carolina Rodriguez, tried to treat the wound with home remedies but nothing stopped the pain, she said. Because she doesn’t have health insurance and can’t afford to pay hospital bills, she couldn’t take her son to see a doctor and waited until the clinic opened to have him treated for free.

The Rodriguezes are among families in the neediest parts of town who don’t have health insurance and seek help at nearby schools.

School officials from Las Lomas and Las Positas elementary schools and Imperial Middle SchoolQ said the clinic almost didn’t open. Last year, they sought a state grant to build the clinic but were turned down.

Then Friendly Hills HealthCare Foundation, which had initially offered to pay for a nurse to staff the school’s clinic, decided to pay for everything as part of its first community project since converting into a nonprofit organization six months ago.

The new clinic, Friends of Children Health Center, offers medical care for all kinds of illnesses and injuries and preventive care to the city’s youths from low-income, uninsured families.

Services cost from $2 to $20, depending on the patient’s family income, but most will be treated for free, officials said.

The clinic, which cost $150,000 to build, equip and staff, will continue to be funded by the foundation, said Gloria Mayer, president and chief operating officer of Friendly Hills HealthCare Network.

“We hope to increase health care for the whole community with this clinic,” she said.

Las Lomas Principal Mary Jo Anderson, whose school offered medical services through a St. Jude mobile health clinic in the mornings one day a week last year, said the new clinic will boost school attendance because children can get medical attention sooner.

“People used to come and line up at 6 in the morning last year to see the nurse in the mobile unit, and many had to be turned away because it was on a first-come, first-served basis,” she said. “Now children will get taken care of before their illnesses become chronic, and they can come back to school faster. That will increase learning.”

Mayer said the new clinic will take up to 16 appointments a day, Monday through Friday, and is planning to offer parenting classes and health fairs.

Seven-year-old Virginia Ruelas, the clinic’s first patient, was given an antibiotic for an infection in her mouth and cream for her palms, which were peeling from an allergic reaction, Leonard said.

Virginia’s mother, Josefina Ruelas, said she will now bring her to the clinic for periodical checkups. “It’s too expensive to take her to the doctors, and we don’t have any insurance,” she said in Spanish.

“This clinic is really close to home,” said Norma Hernandez, who brought her 10-month-old baby for a checkup. “It really helps.”