School Offers $100,000 to Attract Medical Clinic

The Vaughn Next Century Learning Center, a Los Angeles city elementary school, has offered $100,000 and use of school facilities in hopes of securing an on-campus medical clinic to serve uninsured northeast San Fernando Valley residents.

County officials said they are interested in teaming up the school with the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services to establish a clinic, but noted that the idea is at an early stage.

Vaughn, the district’s first charter school, could serve as a model for other schools, county and school officials said. The center would serve Vaughn’s 1,200 students, three-quarters of whom are uninsured, and could possibly serve all uninsured northeast Valley residents.

County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and Vaughn Principal Yvonne Chan said county physicians or nurse practitioners at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center in Sylmar could work at the center, providing general pediatric care, vision and hearing testing, immunizations and, ideally, specialty treatment for common childhood ailments such as asthma.