Children’s health care comes to where it is most accessible: school
TDSB partnerships praised by doctor for getting sick students the quick attention they need
Chaka Nero-Heath usually takes a bus or makes the half-hour drive to take her children to the doctor, taking time out of her busy schedule to ferry her sons and daughter.
But with the creation of a pediatric clinic at their school, she’ll take them to the doctor at a place they go to nearly every day.
“It’s really convenient,” said Nero-Heath while toddler son Dejaz-mach slept on her shoulder. “At least if it’s in the school, I could take one to the doctor and drop the other one in class . . . instead of going here, there and everywhere.”
Toronto’s sixth pediatric school clinic officially opened at Nelson Mandela Park Public School in Regent Park Tuesday, part of the model schools pediatric health initiative. Advocates say the clinics help keep inner-city kids from falling through the cracks and serve as a model for other communities.
“It’s a brand new model . . . We’re coming to them, so it’s a completely different feeling.” SLOANE FREEMAN PEDIATRICIAN AT ST. MICHAEL’S HOSPITAL
St. Michael’s Hospital partners with the TDSB to deliver the clinics at both Nelson Mandela and nearby Sprucecourt Junior Public School. Each serves children from almost 20 other schools in the area and focuses on developmental issues such as learning disabilities.
The other four clinics are a result of partnerships between the school board and different health-care providers.
Sloane Freeman, a pediatrician at St. Michael’s Hospital and the physician lead for the program, said the hospital studied the feasibility of the model.
He said they found it’s well used by kids in the schools and that it works.
“It’s a brand new model for Canada and Ontario,” Freeman said. “At school it’s their home, it’s their community. We’re coming to them, so it’s a completely different feeling.”
Many parents in Regent Park speak English as a second language and feel intimidated by the medical system or are distrustful of it, Freeman said.
Others simply can’t take time off work to take their children to the doctor.
St. Michael’s Hospital is also doing a more comprehensive study, looking at children who did and did not have access to the school clinics, to see if those that do have better educational outcomes.
The plan is to prove to the province the model should be adopted in other cities.
“We’ve seen kids with everything from late diagnosis of autism, lots of ADHD and suspected learning disabilities to cerebral palsy, and I’m quite confident that a number of these kids would not been identified or seen (without the clinics),” Freeman said.
The TDSB has also done its own research on all of the school clinics, said Vicky Branco, system superin- tendent for model schools for inner cities.
“A high percentage (of students) need developmental assessments, and the hospital is helping us track them and fast-track them to get the developmental assessments,” she said.
“We see the typical flus and pink eyes and things that would take a long time for parents to get to and make appointments, be fast-tracked here in these clinics,” Branco added.
Maria Yau, a research co-ordinator with the TDSB, said the board has been studying the initiative for four years with funding from the Ministry of Education. More data will be collected at the new Nelson Mandela site.
The two St. Michael’s sites are funded through philanthropic donors, something Yau said is “not sustainable” in the long term.
She said the Ministries of Health and Education need to work together to provide funding for this type of program on a larger scale.
“We are proud that Canada has a universal health system,” Yau added.
“You wouldn’t realize it in some neighbourhoods.”