Reading, writing, and remedies are in the lesson plan for Bay City Central High School.
This month, the
Great Lakes Bay Health Centers (GLBHC) opened a health care center inside the school, offering primary care, mental health services, and dental and vision checks on campus. The grand opening on Feb. 11 came after about 18 months of planning, construction, and promotion.
The Saginaw-based GLBHC provides health care to people who are underserved, uninsured, or underinsured. It is expanding its presence in Bay County in several ways, including the School-Based Health Center at the high school. It also is planning to create a Mobile Vision Clinic and a consolidated one-stop shop in Uptown Bay City for primary care, dental and vision, substance abuse treatment, women’s services, and access to community health workers.
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Doug CoombeGreat Lakes Bay Health Centers is now operating a School-Based Health Center inside Bay City Central High School. Students need parent permission to seek treatment at the center.
School-Based Health Center opens at Bay City Central High School
The
School-Based Health Center at Central High School, 1624 Columbus Ave., helps solve issues for students, teachers, and parents, says Jeff Larsen, Chief Growth & Development Officer for GLBHC.
The center is open during school hours for people between 3 and 21 years old. Walk-ins are welcome, but appointments can be made. Students must have parental consent for treatment.
Services offered include sports and school physicals; treatment for illness or injuries; health education; vaccines; Behavioral Health Therapy; tuberculosis tests; laboratory work; and the Dental Bus. The clinic offers sliding fee scales based on income and will help uninsured students sign up for
MiChild or
Healthy Kids Dental Program.
“Our goal is number one to keep the student at school,” Larsen says.
When a child needs to see a doctor for a painful twisted ankle, it often means the student misses class and the parent misses work. For some families, the only option is worse – delaying treatment.
“If a parent does not have the flexibility to leave work, or leave wherever they are, maybe they’re at home caring for younger children, or maybe the families have transportation issues and busing is the only way that their child is able to get to school,” then treatment is delayed, he says.
The clinic isn’t just about physical health, Larsen adds.
“We do have a nurse practitioner there, but then we’ve got two social workers that work there.”
Larsen says oftentimes students feel anxious about grades, tests, or relationships.
“How can you perform well in school if that’s top of mind? The availability of these counselors can help work through some of those things so you get to be in school more. It’s really set up for school students to be even more successful,” Larsen says.
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Photo courtesy of Great Lakes Bay Health CentersA mobile dental health program brings dental services to school-aged children in the Great Lakes Bay Region. In the summer, the buses travel throughout lower Michigan providing dental services to migrant and seasonal agricultural workers.
Mobile Vision Clinic is in the works
Helping students and young people be successful doesn’t end at the school-based health center, Larsen adds. The next project on the GLBHC horizon is a Mobile Vision Clinic, which will operate much like the already-successful Dental Bus.
The idea for the Mobile Vision Clinic came from a realization that in the schools, kids are screened, but not tested, for vision problems.
“You can pass that screening and still really not be able to focus all that well,” Larsen says. In some cases, the student’s ability to clearly see and comprehend what’s being taught is “still very, very compromised. And schools don’t have the capacity to follow up.”
Larsen relates that it was on the
Smiles are Everywhere Mobile Dental program that it became obvious something needed to be done about getting people help with vision problems. He tells a story about a child, who he called “Johnny,” who walked into the door frame after a visit to the dental bus.
“The teacher said ‘Johnny, where are your glasses?’ And Johnny reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pair of glasses that were broken in two places and like zip tied and taped together and, this poor kid, the lenses were scratched.”
The glasses were irreparably broken and the family didn’t have the means to fix them. When the Mobile Vision Clinic opens, Johnny could get an exam and new glasses on a bus right next to the mobile dental program.
“We’re seeing more and more that these two units can work side by side, and we can be right there at the school as well.”
Just as the school-based health care, and mobile clinics are the result of looking at the needs in Bay County, Larsen says the new consolidated Great Lakes Bay Healthcare Center is being built with the community’s needs in mind.
Great Lakes Bay Healthcare Center consolidating buildings and expanding services in Bay City
A new facility under construction in Uptown Bay City will put all GLBHC services in Bay City under one roof.
Right now, in addition to the dental buses that visit elementary schools, GLBHC offers services in Bay County at Bayside, 3884 Monitor Road; Women’s Care Bay City, 3175 W. Professional Drive; Bay City South, 690 S. Trumbull St.; and inside Bay City Central High School, 1624 Columbus Ave. and Washington Elementary School, 1821 McKinley Ave.
The new Uptown facility brings all of that under one roof and allows GLBHC to add vision services to its Bay County offerings. Read more about the expansion in this Oct. 10 Route Bay City article.
The new building will keep the Bayside name, but help solve a space issue, increase capacity, and provide a “one-stop shop,” for health services.
“The need outpaces what we have the space and capacity to provide,” especially in the case of obstetrics, gynecology, and midwife services.
The new Uptown facility also allows for expansion in the future, which Larsen says will give patients more options for care down the road.
“We’re also partnering with the
(Bay County) Health Department, and they’re going to come down, I think it’s twice a week, and bring their
WIC (Women, Infants & Children) and
Maternal and Child Health Services into this building.”
Ground is broken and construction is underway on the new Bayside facility, Larsen says, and it will take about a year and a half to complete.
Once construction is finished, Larsen says he expects it to open in phases. “With all of our existing and potential patients, we’ll make sure to communicate extremely well about the timelines and phases of it.”
What’s driving each of the changes is the same – making sure patients get the care they need when and where they need it.
“It’s going to be magnificent. We're, really honored to be in a position to where we can provide that type of care.”