BELL GARDENS: School Gets Clinic to Treat Uninsured

      Suva Intermediate School opened a medical clinic last week to treat the "scores of local students" who lack insurance. Possible through a $7,500 grant from Kaiser Permanente, the clinic is staffed one afternoon per week by a volunteer doctor from Kaiser Permanente Bellflower Medical Center. Officials in the Montebello Unified School District said students often come to school "ill and unable to concentrate on their work." Suva Principal Glenda Golobay agreed, adding, "We have a group of students whose parents may be working two or three jobs and they don't have medical care." In southern California, school clinics have become a growing trend. In 1998, the county Board of Supervisors announced plans to invest up to $50 million a year to expand the program in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Kaiser Permanente supports two other school-based clinics in southeast Los Angeles (Los Angeles Times, 3/14).