Bill calls for school health centers

Health activists pressing the legislature for more funding for in-school medical-treatment centers gathered yesterday at the State House to host the third annual School-Based Health Center Awareness Day.

Speakers from the Massachusetts Coalition of School-Based Health Centers promoted funding increases for legislation like Chapter 58, a measure that gives children who may not have access to adequate health care an opportunity to receive it at school.

The legislative effort follows a successful 2006 pilot program headed by the MCSBHC and the state Department of Public Health to set up school health centers for a year in Revere, Holyoke, Lowell, Lynn and Worcester.

In the state, 68,000 students attend schools with health centers, said Massachusetts MCSBHC program director Antonia Blinn. Before the pilot program, former Gov. Mitt Romney did not provide funding for SBHCs, so schools sought funding from their own districts.

SBHCs help connect students to pharmacists and health care professionals who make diagnoses that would have gone unnoticed and help get immunizations and health insurance for students in need, said Bob Smith, spokesman for Rep. Mark Falzone, a Democrat from Lynn, where the program is still in effect.

"They are great for learning and great for schools," Smith said.

Janice Nyamekye and Averi Hamilton, sophomores at South High Community School in Worcester, said their school's health center helps parents so they do not have to transport their children to and from a doctor's office.

Nyamekye said when she lived in Africa, she was not used to discussing her health problems with doctors. She said when her family moved to the United States, her heart problem required multiple emergency room visits. The nurse practitioner at Worcester Middle School helped her to adjust to her condition and avoid subsequent ER trips.

Hamilton said she could not imagine a school without a health center. She said a school that does not provide health services leaves its students without the support they deserve.

"It's almost as if it has no soul," she said.

Revere High School nurse practitioner Emily Wilcox said the event, intended to get more funding from the state budget for SBHCs, was well organized.

"I'm glad that the Coalition pulled it together," she said.