Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 22, 1994 TAG: 9409240012
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The imperative to respond is evident enough. Children lacking routine health care are less likely to live up to their potential. They are more likely to fail in school, and so never to learn skills they need to hold jobs as adults. They are more likely to live in poverty and dependence, and to contribute to all the social pathologies, including teen pregnancy, crime and drugs, that tear at the nation's fabric. One-quarter of America's children are at risk of such outcomes.
What isn't in evidence, not nearly enough anyway, is a collective determination to avoid the foreseeable, to prevent the preventable, to assure all children a healthy and safe start in life.
Our failure to reverse the decline in children's health and well-being constitutes nothing less than a scandal, eased only marginally by the insufficiently supported efforts of some to respond to the crisis.
Two years ago, United Way of America launched a nationwide initiative, challenging local communities' public, private and voluntary sectors to come together around programs aimed at improving conditions for kids, with special emphasis on the needs of the most vulnerable - youngsters in low-income families.
In describing standards for effective programs, United Way could have borrowed its formula from the Roanoke-originated Child Health Investment Partnership, known as CHIP. The United Way initiative and CHIP share the goal of assuring, including for children in working-poor families, better access to preventive and primary medical care.
It seems likely, therefore, that United Way of Roanoke Valley will approve CHIP's application to become a partner agency in 1995. That status would assure a steady source of funding, something CHIP hasn't enjoyed since its founding here in 1988.
As a partner agency, CHIP might receive perhaps $100,000 a year from the United Way's pool. That would certainly help, and United Way oversight shouldn't hurt.
But that funding would not eliminate the need for support from other sources, including from local governments. United Way contributions would amount to about an eighth of CHIP's current budget. And that budget doesn't come close to serving all the kids who need the medical-care access and family support that CHIP facilitates.
Several thousand children in the valley, ages 1 to 6, either remain on CHIP's waiting list (a misnomer, since most of them simply outgrow the program), or have been identified as eligible and in need.
Most of them will never obtain access to a "care coordinator," who helps families organize their children's health care; to a "medical home," a doctor's office where the child establishes a connection with a primary-care physician; or to all the health and nutrition advice, immunizations, dental care, rides to doctor's appointments and other services that CHIP provides.
Sad to say, even with United Way help, the population in need of, but going without, such services seems certain to grow. It's testimony to our society's failure, as myopic as it is cruel, to put children's health and well-being first.
by CNB