On Thursday morning, the ribbon was cut on the new Jordan Wellness Center facility in Watts, opening another school-based health center in South Los Angeles.
The center, operated by Watts Healthcare Corporation, is located on the campus of Jordan High School, along the Jordan Downs housing development.
When the center opens its doors sometime in May, it will serve students from the high school and several nearby elementary and middle schools, as well as residents of Jordan Downs and other surrounding communities.
Until then, the Jordan Wellness Center will continue to operate out of the two-room facility inside Jordan High School that it has used since the 1970s. William Hobson, president and CEO of Watts Healthcare Corporation, called the old facility “pretty run down” and said it didn’t offer much privacy for patients.
He explained why the improved aesthetic appearance of the new, freestanding center is more important than it might seem at first glance.
“I’ve had the opportunity to look at school-based health centers all over the country,” Hobson said. “I’ve found that the better the facility looks, the more pride the students have and the more they use it. Just the privacy that this facility offers people is going to make all the difference.”
The new building has five examination rooms and offers medical care, psychiatric care, family planning and vaccinations, among other services. After opening, opening hours will be Monday, Tuesday and Thursday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Wednesday and Friday from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m.
The date for the opening of the plant is subject to final approvals by the federal government and an on-site inspection by district officials.
“It will be open to their parents, it will be open to members of the community,” Hobson said. “That can essentially help provide the community with better access to health care, and when you have better access to health care, that can improve the health of the community.”
“I think it has the potential to be a game changer, as has been the case with all accessible health centers,” he said.
The trend
School-based health centers are very popular on the South Side:
These are some of the 14 school-based wellness centers that are at the heart of the LA Trust for Children’s Health’s vision.
“I’ve been in public health for over 30 years, and when we look at health disparities and see no change, that’s a problem we need to address,” says Maryjane Puffer, executive director of the LA Trust.
The organization is leading efforts to develop 14 school-based wellness centers by 2014, most of them on LAUSD campuses. Other locations in South LA include THE Clinic’s location at Crenshaw High School and the Northeast Community Clinics’ location at Gage Middle School.
Puffer said that while similar programs are being developed in parts of San Diego and Compton, she noted that “there is nothing comparable in scope to what is happening in LAUSD.”
How they help
School-based clinics are not a panacea for the widespread medical underprovision in South Los Angeles, says Nina Vaccaro, executive director of the Southside Coalition of Community Health Centers, but they are “part of the solution.”
“We are still studying how people will access care,” she said. “The number of appointments these wellness centers can offer on a daily basis is limited because they are much smaller than the comprehensive health centers operated by the federally qualified health centers that operate these wellness centers.”
In other words, the school-based health centers offer easy access but can’t compete with full-fledged health clinics in terms of scope and range of services. But if a patient needs something a school-based clinic can’t provide, Vaccaro says there’s a simple solution: referrals.
“There is a comprehensive health center just a few blocks or miles down the road,” she said.
Jim Mangia, president and CEO of St. John’s, called school-based health care the “future of health care.”
“It gives you the opportunity to intervene as early as possible in a family’s health trajectory,” he said. “You create a culture of health and have an engaged audience with whom you can do that.”
Mangia is also helping to bring the school-based wellness center movement to the Compton Unified School District: Eight days before the opening of Washington Prep’s wellness center, St. John’s celebrated the grand opening of the Dominguez High School Health Center.
On Wednesday, St. John’s also announced that Compton Unified has approved a plan for a new wellness center at Compton High School. Mangia hopes construction can begin within a year. The clinic has experienced relatively dizzying growth, but Mangia says the clinic has “plans to go even further.”
“I think school-based health centers can be sustainable,” he said. “I think the critical component is that they have to be open to the general public. Part of sustainability has to be that the school health center becomes an integral part of the community.”
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