ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Get the Kids the Medical Care

School and health professionals are realizing more and more that learning well and feeling well go hand in hand. But too often schools, especially in low-income districts, must do the best they can to teach children who are ailing. For example, a recent survey of two Santa Ana elementary schools, where a majority of the students are nonwhite, indicated that 88% of the children had medical problems ranging from toothaches to viral pneumonia.

Nor is Santa Ana alone. Gov. Pete Wilson, even while grappling with a budget deficit of historic proportions, has made the integration of social and health services into schools a top priority. Wilson’s “Healthy Start” legislation--which would provide $20 million to help schools link children and families with health, mental health and social services--underwent its first policy hearing this week.

But, despite the demonstrated need, some oppose elementary school-based health clinics because they fear, erroneously, that they would be used to supply birth control devices or abortion information to students. Nor are those who object calmed by assurances that parents would be consulted on any medical care their children receive, or, in the case of Santa Ana, by the obvious fact that elementary school children are presumably pre-pubescent.

Recently, two priests resigned from the Santa Ana school district’s health clinic advisory board when local physicians, asked what they would do if an elementary school girl became pregnant, said they would feel obligated to provide her parents with a list of medical clinics, some of which may offer abortion counseling. The ensuing brouhaha threatens to derail planning for a clinic that would serve many of Santa Ana’s 25,000 kindergarten through fifth-grade students.

The Santa Ana school board will decide May 14 whether to allow proponents to seek outside funds to finance the clinic. The board should move forward. Like so many in California, the district’s children need medical care before they can be expected to learn.