GLENDALE: Healthy Kids Program Provides Free Care to Uninsured

      Today's Los Angeles Times profiles the Glendale Healthy Kids program, in which doctors and parents "have pooled their resources and established a network that provides free medical care for uninsured Glendale students." The Healthy Kids staff operates out of the Glendale Unified School District's administration center, fielding calls from school nurses who call in seeking immediate care for sick or injured students. Students are then directed to a participating dentist, doctor or hospital. Carol Reynolds, executive director of the program and the liaison between schools and providers, said, "Our primary goal is to improve the students' health so they have a better chance to learn." The project "galvanized" after a 1993 needs assessment report highlighted the need for free health care for the area's children. Glendale Adventist Medical Center and Verdugo Hills Hospital joined Glendale Memorial Hospital in 1994 to form the program, which now provides urgent care, pharmaceutical services, eye care and dental care. Dr. Richard Foullon of the Verdugo Hills Medical Associates said, "My associates and I just can't stand to see people who need our help and can't get it. We want to take care of the children in our community who don't have access to the same health care my own kids have." The Times reports that the program served about 600 children last year (Wedner, 4/8).