Mobile Health Clinic for Students Started

County and Los Angeles Unified School District officials gathered at Sepulveda Middle School on Friday morning to launch a new program they said would improve access to medical care for 10,000 Valley students.

The Mobile Clinic Outreach Program, which utilizes a high-tech medical van, will provide free basic health care to students at eight Valley schools in the Kennedy/Monroe and Grant/Van Nuys school clusters, officials said.

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said the program began as an outgrowth of disaster-response efforts in the 1994 Northridge earthquake, when many Valley residents were unable to obtain critical emergency services because of power failures, road closures and other damage.

The county Health Department purchased five mobile units in the wake of that disaster, but during nonemergency periods they have remained idle, Yaroslavsky said.

“Using the vans in this way is a very productive way to reach thousands of kids and there is no better place to reach them than in school,” Yaroslavsky said. “We are really focused on trying to substantially improve access to health care for young people in our communities.”

On Friday, county health officials showed off their state-of-the-art mobile clinic at Sepulveda Middle School. The custom-built van contains two exam rooms and is equipped to provide checkups, immunizations, lab work and a variety of other basic medical services. It will be staffed by doctors and nurses from Olive View-UCLA Medical Center and Mid-Valley Comprehensive Health Center.

The mobile clinic will travel to participating schools at least one morning per week. Students are required to schedule appointments and receive parental consent before visiting the clinic, officials said.

Margarita Lopez, whose three children attend Langdon Avenue School in the Kennedy/Monroe Cluster, said the mobile health units are a “wonderful idea.”

“In this area there are many families who do not have medical insurance,” she said. “This is very important for them to make sure their children stay healthy.”