Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 17, 1993 TAG: 9303170392
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
TEENS WITH MORE THAN GROWING PAINS
WHEN PROM time arrives this year for Roanoke's teen-agers, family cameras will come out as in the past, and parents will take snapshots of the kids the way we like them and want them to be: curled, combed, smiling, bubbly, vibrant, healthy.Sad to say, that's not the picture of teens that emergency-room doctors and public-health nurses see. They see young people who are hurting.
From poor nutrition. From abuse of alcohol and illegal drugs. From smoking. From sexual activity and related afflictions. From chronic illnesses. From violent injuries. From depression.
These are not mere growing pains that (as adults have promised kids for generations) will soon go away by themselves. They are serious ailments crippling, sometimes killing, an alarming number of Roanoke's adolescents.
On today's Commentary page, Tom Robertson, president of Carilion Health System, cites statistics indicating just how serious the problems have become here. It's a situation he is all too familiar with because - increasingly - sick, troubled, injured kids are ending up in Carilion hospitals' emergency rooms.
As a health-care provider, as a nonprofit institution with ties and obligations to the community - and because teen-agers' families often lack health insurance to pay for their care - the hospitals have an interest in improving adolescents' health.
Indeed, the cost-effectiveness of public health and primary and preventive care should be self-evident. The chronic illness caught early, the teen-ager counseled to avoid pregnancy, an accessible alternative to emergency-room visits: These things save money as well as kids.
So - as Robertson is the first to observe - more than generosity has prompted Carilion to offer a $400,000 grant for teen health efforts in Roanoke. The money will help launch a school-based clinic program and expand services of the existing Teen Health Center at Hurt Park.
This Roanoke Adolescent Health Partnership, as it's been dubbed, is a welcome addition to the city's innovative array of health services. It is a public-private partnership joining the Roanoke City Health Department, Carilion, Roanoke City Public Schools and the Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority.
In some ways, it's akin to the extraordinary CHIP (Comprehensive Health Investment Program) that also was launched in Roanoke as a public-private partnership in 1988. CHIP's basic aim is to bring down barriers (such as lack of medical insurance and transportation) to primary health care for preschool and elementary-school children of working-poor families.
The program outlined at a news conference Wednesday will seek to do the same for teens, by delivering care directly to them at places where they spend much of their time: in school.
The $400,000 grant will finance a three-year pilot at two city schools - Patrick Henry High and Ruffner Middle School. At the end of three years, the program will be evaluated and, it is hoped, extended into other high schools and middle schools.
With written parental permission, any student will be able to go for a range of services - including physical exams, health screenings, treatment of acute conditions, immunizations, nutrition counseling, mental-health counseling, drug and alcohol counseling, health education, family-planning information and referral, and limited laboratory tests.
Some, alas, may read the above and think one word: condoms. In fact, nationwide studies show that fewer than 20 percent of students' visits to school-based clinics involve birth control. A host of physical and mental-health problems cry out for the attention of health-care professionals. Right now, many Roanoke teen-agers aren't getting the attention they need.
Health-care clinics in schools are a logical extension of school-based nurses - who've been around more than 100 years. Shamefully, not enough have been around in recent years. At the very time when adolescent health problems are reaching critical proportions, funding cuts by federal, state and local governments have spread school nurses woefully thin.
Two school-based clinics are no substitute for more nurses. And the Roanoke Adolescent Health Partnership's initial plan itself suffices only as a model, which needs to be expanded.
Meantime, though, officials of Carilion and the city's public-health department, the schools and housing authority deserve credit for a constructive and cost-effective effort - another step by a community beginning to assume responsibility for the health of its young people. Someday, as a result, fewer teens may arrive at emergency rooms and morgues - and more may resemble our pretty prom-picture images of them.