Firm to provide health care at 4 schools

• By SANDY DAVIS
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Nov 6, 2009 - Page: 1B

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A nonprofit medical company will provide free medical care to students from low-income families at four elementary schools in East Baton Rouge Parish, the head of the company announced Thursday.

“We’re doing this because we wanted to make an impact on our community,” said Lawrence Potier Sr., chief executive officer for Baton Rouge Primary Care Collaborative Inc., the company providing the care.

Potier made the announcement at Crestworth Learning Academy during the grand opening of the school’s new health center, a classroom remodeled by the company into a small clinic.

The other schools that will be served are: Dalton Elementary, Lanier Elementary and Kenilworth Science and Technology Charter School, he said.

The services the clinic plans to provide include immunizations, physicals and regular doctor visits for children with medical or even dental problems, Potier said.

Melanie Thomas, a nurse practitioner, will make weekly visits to the schools.

Thomas said the children will be treated just as if they were at a clinic.

“If the children need to be referred for further care, we will refer them to the clinic or to whomever they need, including a dentist,” Thomas said. “And we set up the appointment.”

The program also includes Behavioral Health Services, with Tarsha White serving as director, where students in need of counseling will receive it, Thomas said.

Any time a child is treated, a parent will be contacted, she said.

Potier said the company’s first clinic opened in 2005 at 1414 Fairchild St. and, since then, a second one opened on the St. Vincent de Paul campus and serves the homeless.

Low-income adults — or those with no income — receive treatment at the clinics as do patients with Medicaid, insurance, or those who pay in cash, said Roderick Wilson, chairman of the company’s board.

“No one is turned away,” he said.