Registered nurse Ernestina Santos checks the blood pressure of Terry Reynolds, 15, at the Hays CISD WELL Clinic. Terry was getting a physical exam before the start of football season. (Photo by Wes Ferguson)
by WES FERGUSON
Fifteen-year-old Terry Reynolds was looking pretty glum last week, with his head hung low and his legs dangling from a medical exam room table.
“He’s hoping no shots,” explained Terry’s dad, David Reynolds.
Reynolds was offering moral support for his needle-averse son when – like more than 3,600 children and teens every year – Terry found himself at the Hays CISD WELL Clinic this past Wednesday.
Terry, a soon-to-be-sophomore at Hays High School, needed a sports physical before the start of football two-a-days. Other children visit the clinic for everything from checkups, immunizations and minor injuries to chronic illnesses such as complications from diabetes and asthma-related issues.
“Basically, we do everything that a pediatric office would do,” said Ruth Roberts, the Hays CISD director of student health services. “We get some tough cases sometimes – really sick kids that don’t have anywhere else to go.”
Today there are more needy kids than ever in Hays CISD, officials say. The district has experienced explosive population growth since the clinic opened a decade ago, and the number of economically disadvantaged students has grown at an even faster clip. The portion of disadvantaged students has increased from 40 percent of the district’s enrollment in 2003 to 49 percent – or 7,500 students – in the past school year.
As children’s health needs continue to grow, so will the clinic. Hays CISD was recently awarded a half-million-dollar federal grant to build a much larger and permanent health center on the campus of Simon Middle School. The new center will replace a cramped portable building on the campus, and the number of exam rooms is expected to increase from two to nine.
With a planned opening late next summer, the new facility will be able to serve an estimated 7,000 kids a year. The WELL Clinic – short for Wellness Encouraged for Lifelong Learning – provides care for Hays CISD’s disadvantaged students, siblings of students and children of students who are uninsured or receive assistance such as Medicaid or CHIP.
The WELL Clinic is the only school-based health center in the Austin area. Terry’s dad said health care for his children would have been harder to come by if not for the clinic.
“I haven’t had to use them very often, but when I do, they’re here,” Reynolds said. “Now nobody wants to take Medicaid, so we’re finding it harder to find primary care.”
Dr. Michael Grady, a local pediatrician, supervises the clinic in a volunteer capacity, and Candace Reeves, a pediatric nurse practitioner, oversees day-to-day care. Hays CISD was one of only seven recipients in Texas of $95 million in grants from the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration.
In a show of cooperation with other local health-care providers, the school district’s federal grant application includes a letter of support from CommuniCare Health Centers, which operates a clinic in Kyle which also targets uninsured and underinsured patients.
Austin-based Seton Healthcare Family, which operates a medical campus in Kyle, provided financial support for the federal grant proposal. The WELL Clinic’s preventative care and treatment of minor illnesses help cut down on costly and oftentimes unnecessary trips to Seton’s emergency rooms, according to Roberts.
“We’re seeing kids that they don’t want to be seeing in the E.R.,” she said.
