Hundreds of Kids Get Exams at Santa Rosa Health Festival
Hundreds of volunteers turned out Sunday in Santa Rosa with three goals: Give local children health exams, get them insured and put them on track for a healthy lifestyle.
The third annual Neighbors in Health at Kaiser Permanente's Stein Medical Campus on Old Redwood Highway provided free medical and dental checkups for more than 500 children and teenagers, most of whom are uninsured.
Isai Chi Chuc, 4, gets a cavity filled Sunday at the annual Neighbors in Health program, which was held at Kaiser Permanente to provide services for hundreds of uninsured or underinsured residents in Santa Rosa.
The event also provided a forum for nutritionists to emphasize that healthy eating and exercise in childhood fend off chronic disease in adulthood.
Jaime Garcia, speaking in a combination of English and Spanish, expressed his gratitude for having a place to take his three children for dental exams and to get information ranging from the benefits of eating more fruits and vegetables to the importance of daily exercise. "We are not very informed about these topics," he said.
The event included educational games, music and two inflatable jump houses to keep the children entertained and engaged.
The children, primarily Latino, were given eye and ear exams, general physicals and vaccinations necessary to attend school. The biggest group of children examined were those needing pre-kindergarten exams; about 20 percent were teenagers needing physicals to play sports in the coming academic year, according to organizers.
Doctors also found about 5 percent of the children needed urgent care, said Dr. Kirk Pappas, the Kaiser physician in charge of Sunday's event. One girl, for example, was found to be nearly blind. An important goal is to help families find some form of health insurance, Pappas said. Last year, one in three children left the event with coverage, he said. "Kids who have health insurance when they're young do better in school," Pappas said. "And they have less chronic illness when they're older."
Sonoma County has about 3,000 uninsured children, said Walter Collins, chief executive officer of the United Way for Sonoma, Mendocino and Lake counties. The United Way was one of dozens of local organizations that turned out Sunday to support the effort to get children examined and insured. "The solution is communal. We can't do it alone," Collins said.
The Redwood Community Health Coalition is also a major contributor to the annual event. In the coming weeks, it will contact the families of children who attended Sunday to try to ensure they follow through with treatments recommended by physicians. Follow-up treatment will be provided at little or no cost, according to organizers.
The Redwood Community Health Coalition, which includes divisions of Sutter and Memorial hospitals, has helped find insurance for 22,000 children, said spokesman Pedro Toledo.
About 80 percent of Latino children get their health care through the clinic, he said. More white children attended this year's event, likely as a result of the economic downturn, said Kaiser physician in chief Dr. Bob Schultz. "Parents obviously want their kids to get access to health care," he said.
August 4, 2008 Press Democrat by Nathan Halverson