HOLLYWOOD : Program Offers Students Free Health Care

Students at Hollywood High School and their families will now have access to free health care, thanks to a state grant and $35,000 from Kaiser Permanente.

Health care professionals from Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles and Kaiser will offer free services to Hollywood High School students at the Los Angeles Free Clinic, near the school, for a four-hour period on Wednesday mornings.

Hollywood High is one of only a few Los Angeles Unified School District high schools with such an extensive health care program.

Most of its nearly 3,000 students do not have health care coverage, according to school officials.

In 1993, the high school received a $300,000 grant from the state Department of Education under the Healthy Start program, which is designed to help schools develop health care services on campus or through referrals to local clinics and hospitals.

Hollywood High administrators had spent three years drafting a plan with Kaiser, the Los Angeles Free Clinic and Childrens Hospital.

The Free Clinic began offering services to students last month.

Those who have already visited the clinic are “enormously grateful,” said Healthy Start coordinator Carol Berk.

The health care needs of students at Hollywood High often exceed the capacities of school nurses, who by law cannot even dispense aspirin, Berk said. She added that immigrant students need immunizations and hundreds of students have problems ranging from sexually transmitted diseases to physical abuse.

“That’s why Kaiser and Childrens Hospital got involved,” she said.

Students will be referred by a school nurse to the Free Clinic, where they will be treated by resident physicians from Kaiser.

If the student needs further treatment, he or she will be referred to Childrens Hospital.

A clinic was not set up at the school itself because the cost would be too great, said Mary Rainwater, executive director of the Free Clinic. Since the Free Clinic’s Hollywood Boulevard site is not far from the high school, Rainwater said, it made sense to refer the students there.

“(The goal) is to try to identify (health problems) that might impact a student’s ability to learn,” Rainwater said.

The Kaiser donation, the state grant, and contributions from Childrens Hospital, said Berk, have covered the start-up costs for the weekly clinic.

The school has $100,000 remaining from the Healthy Start grant--enough, Berk said, to run the clinic through July.

“But after that, we’ll have some serious fund-raising to do,” she said. Hollywood High operates on a year-round schedule.

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Spreading the word about the clinic has been a challenge, said Berk, given the cultural diversity of students and their families. The school sent letters home to parents in English, Spanish and Armenian.

“Many of the newcomers are from countries where programs like this don’t exist, especially those from (the former) Soviet Armenia,” Berk said.

She said she also has noticed wariness among immigrant families since the passage of Proposition 187, the measure prohibiting health services to illegal immigrants.

“We have to let the students and parents know it’s safe and it’s OK,” she said.