By Cate Lecuyer
staff writer
—
BEVERLY — Starting this fall, students who need dental or medical care will have to go no farther than down the hall.
When the new academic building opens in November, for the first time kids will have access to a health clinic that provides medical, dental and preventive services to those who otherwise might not receive care. Beverly Public Schools teamed up with the city's health department — which already runs a dental clinic at Briscoe Middle School — and North Shore Community Health to staff the offices with nurse practitioners.
North Shore Community Health also runs a teen center at Salem High School and family health centers in Salem, Peabody and Gloucester. It's a federally qualified health center that provides treatment to underserved people regardless of their ability to pay. It accepts insurance, charges fees on a sliding scale and can make referrals to doctors for other services, increasing the level of care for students, CEO Robert Henderschott said.
Nurses will provide general medical services, including checkups, throat cultures and writing prescriptions, and dentists will do cleanings, fillings, X-rays and other basic procedures.
"This is so exciting," said Superintendent James Hayes, who spearheaded the effort to create the Beverly center. The services will all be in the same place, next to the nurses' office in the new building.
At first, the clinic will cater only to students. With its own outside entrance, administrators see it growing to provide care to anyone in the city.
"The long-range plan is to consider extending essential medical and dental primary care during non-school hours to the underserved adults in the Beverly community," Hayes said in a prepared statement. "With the private entrance, this can be done at any time of day or night."
When the clinic first opens, only high school students will have access to medical care. All Beverly public school students will continue to have access to dental care. The Briscoe Center will remain open during the transition, and eventually North Shore Community Health will take over from the city's health department.
"It's terrific to know that this beneficial public health program will continue for the foreseeable future," Beverly Health Director Bill Burke said.
The department has run the clinic for nearly a century — since 1916.
School administrators started talking about an in-school medical clinic in 2001 but shelved the idea when state grant money was cut. But with the construction of the new high school, Hayes revisited the concept and incorporated the dental clinic, as well.
"I still felt the need to provide in-school medical services to students who might otherwise not seek care," he said. "And since the long-term future of Briscoe Middle School is uncertain, I saw this as an opportunity to find a permanent location for the dental clinic, too."
Last year, the dental clinic served 308 Beverly students, Burke said. It was down 30 kids from 2008, but has reached up to 400 kids in past years.
Henderschott, at North Shore Community Health, said he doesn't know what sort of volume to expect from the health center.
"We're going to start out modestly," he said. "We plan to have a nurse practitioner providing medical care for three days a week to start out with."
Such a clinic will help identify kids who are at risk, keep students healthy and benefit families that, for instance, may opt out of voluntary insurance like dental, or can't take time out of work to bring their children to appointments.
"It's better access," he said. "For dental services especially, it's probably the highest need in the country today."
Staff writer Cate Lecuyer can be reached at clecuyer@salem news.com.
