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School-Based Health Centers Open In Schenectady

Hometown Health Centers has partnered with the Schenectady City School District to open the county’s first school-based health centers.

Hometown Health Centers, which provides health care to 18,000 underserved patients in Schenectady, is now offering thousands of Schenectady middle and high school students a convenient healthcare option.

School-based health centers recently opened at both Mont Pleasant Middle School and Schenectady High School, which are staffed by family nurse practitioners under the supervision of a HHC-employed physician.

Each site can provide medical care and treatment for acute and chronic illness and disease, routine physicals for school or sports, required immunizations, administration of medication, screenings for vision, hearing, asthma, obesity, and other clinical conditions.

Gambino
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“This is a truly meaningful day in Schenectady, said Hometown Health Centers CEO Joe Gambino. “

HHC CEO Joe Gambino says both sites are roughly 1,500 square feet, including waiting areas, infirmaries, exam rooms, labs and registration areas.  "Here in New York state or around the country, we have all the same equipment. So when you're going into a school-based health center, you're walking into what you would see as familiar from the reference of any physician's office or mid-levels office anywhere around the country. We have all the same equipment."

Supporters of school-based health centers say they reduce barriers that keep young people from getting health services. Those barriers can include accessibility, cost, transportation, concerns about confidentiality, and apprehension about discussing personal health problems. Since the SBHC is located on or near school property, students can receive health care services and return to learning in their classrooms.

"Any student who is seen at either the elementary school, middle school or high school, must be enrolled in the program. If a student goes to the nurse and the student is not enrolled in the program. If a student goes to the nurse and the student is not enrolled in the program, according to the New York State Department of Health, we cannot see them," said Gambino.

Dave Lucas: "What's the enrollment entail?"

Gambino:  "It's very simple, it's like any registration. Family address, you know, all the demographic information. Health insurance, allergies, you know those kind of things. Stuff that we would need to know. Where their primary care office is if it's not us, who their other doctor is, and also information of how to contact the parent or legal guardian. So they want them to be enrolled in the program, and once they're enrolled in the program, we can take care of them just like the parent taking them to any medical office in the area, with the exception that in this particular case, the parents don't be there, because they've already given consent."

Additional services provided at the SBHC’s include reproductive healthcare, counseling, contraception, STD screening and anti-smoking and substance abuse education. Behavioral health screenings and referrals for evaluations to specialists are also available.  Hamilton Elementary students will also be seen at Mont Pleasant during regular school hours with round-trip transportation provided by the school.

Spring
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“We are extremely pleased and excited that the school-based Hometown Health Centers are open in Mont Pleasant and Schenectady High School and are serving our students,” said Larry Spring, superintendent, Schenectady School District.

Larry Spring is Superintendent of the Schenectady City School District.   "The kids will be much more likely to go and get some of these services and just far less disruptive to mom or dad needing to take time off of work or trying to get them a few blocks away or down across town to get some of that service. And I think that that is significant. You know and I don't know exactly what the rates would be here you know in our school, but when we look at some of the national and the statewide data, it's clear that there are lots of kids who are not getting pretty important medical services, for those reasons. It's just not convenient and they qualify for Medicaid, tehy could get those services if they wanted to, but for whatever reason it's not convenient and they're not able to, they're not accessing it. And that lack of service contributes to a number of chronic health conditions that re detrimental, long term to kids, both their learning and their overall health."

Nearly 200 students are enrolled in the school-based program now. HHC’s enrollment target is 500 students before the close of the 2016-2017 academic year.

Dave Lucas is WAMC’s Capital Region Bureau Chief. Born and raised in Albany, he’s been involved in nearly every aspect of local radio since 1981. Before joining WAMC, Dave was a reporter and anchor at WGY in Schenectady. Prior to that he hosted talk shows on WYJB and WROW, including the 1999 series of overnight radio broadcasts tracking the JonBenet Ramsey murder case with a cast of callers and characters from all over the world via the internet. In 2012, Dave received a Communicator Award of Distinction for his WAMC news story "Fail: The NYS Flood Panel," which explores whether the damage from Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee could have been prevented or at least curbed. Dave began his radio career as a “morning personality” at WABY in Albany.
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