By By BETTY MITCHELL GRAY
betty@wdnweb.com
Staff Writer
A plan to provide a health clinic for public-school students in Beaufort County is among the topics scheduled to be discussed by school leaders Monday.
The Beaufort County Board of Education will consider whether to apply for a $500,000 federal grant to build a health clinic at one of the county’s schools during the coming year.
That’s one of the options available to recipients of an Affordable Care Act Grant for School-Based Health Centers from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration, according to information presented recently to a school-board committee charged with overseeing the school system’s buildings, grounds and finances.
The clinic, if built, would provide “routine health care” for students, including dental care, care for chronic health conditions and disease prevention services for students where the clinic is located, according to Lynn Bolden, chief operating officer of the Agape Clinic.
Bolden and the Rev. David L. Moore, executive director of Metropolitan Housing and Community Development Corp. Inc., recently met with the committee to talk about grants available for building and operating a school-based clinic.
“We have been very successful in our grant writing,” Bolden said.
The deadline for the grant application is Dec. 1, with follow-up applications due in January, the committee was told.
“Our goal is to try to create a healthier community,” Moore told the committee. “If we could bring this type of health care to the community, we would be head of the game.”
School leaders have said they hope to move forward with the project, but some have questioned whether the December deadline gives them enough time to determine where such a clinic should be sited to provide care for the greatest number of students who would need its services.
“I personally would like to see this occur,” said Robert Belcher, school-board chairman, after hearing the proposal. “The healthier our students are, the better students they will be.”
Under the proposal now before the school board, Metropolitan Community Health Services, which operates the Agape Clinic, would first apply for a grant to build the clinic and, once the clinic is built, apply for a grant to operate it.
The clinic building would be owned by Beaufort County Schools, but its operations, including medical staff, would be under the auspices of Agape Clinic.
Metropolitan Community Health Services could apply to build clinics at more schools in future years, according to information presented to the board.
Health-care services would be provided to children on a sliding scale based on family income at the school and where the clinic is located, according to information presented to the school-board committee.
“We have a lot of children who need help getting care,” said William Warren, chairman of the school board’s Building and Grounds and Finance Committee. “But they are right on the edge of qualifying for that help.”
One issue before the board is the location of the school-based clinic.
“You would want to place the facility where you’re going to get the biggest bang for your buck,” Bolden said. “You would want to look at the numbers.”
The board also could consider applying for a grant to operate a mobile clinic that could be moved to schools throughout the system.
School-based health clinics are part of a growing trend in North Carolina to bring the doctor’s office to schools so students avoid health-related absences. They vary based on community need and resources. For example, some communities rely on mobile health centers with a traveling health-care team that rotates from school to school.
The clinics typically provide a comprehensive range of services that meet the specific physical and behavioral needs of the young people in the community and employ a team comprised of nurse practitioners, registered nurses, doctors and other health professionals.
The clinics also typically require parents to sign written consent forms for their children to receive the full range of services provided at the clinic.
The Agape Clinic, which began offering services in 1998 under Metropolitan Housing &CDC, was incorporated in 1999. Metropolitan Community Health Services is nonprofit organization that provides health care to individuals regardless of their ability to pay for those services.
On Monday, the school board is scheduled to consider a resolution of support for the establishment of a regional, agricultural high school in Washington County.