West Side Leadership Academy could be the site of Gary's next community health center

Contributed By: The 411 News

The Gary Community School Corporation and its Board of School Trustees heard proposals in October from Community HealthNet Health Centers (CHN) and Edgewater Health about locating a health center inside West Side Leadership Academy.

Dr. Yvonne Stokes, GCSC Superintendent said the district is revisiting the health clinic conversation begun in 2007 by CHN. “The next step includes the leadership team and school board members reviewing the information submitted by interested parties and conducting additional research regarding cost and other factors prior to making a decision,” Supt. Stokes said.

‘In 2007, we started the conversation with the Gary and Lake Ridge school districts,” Dr. Janet Seabrook, CEO and founder of Community HealthNet told the board. “We were able to move forward with Lake Ridge in 2008.”

Today, the CHN health center is still in Lake Ridge’s Calumet High School, serving the community. CHN has added 2 school-based health centers in Hammond and just recently, one in the East Chicago school district; they only serve students and staffs.

CHN has 6 health centers in Gary and neighboring communities.

The clinic proposed for West Side would be like the one at Calumet High, serving the entire community.

Health centers in schools are not new, said Ben Adesope, Chief Medical Officer at CHN. “As of 2024, the National School Based Health Centers Alliance reported about 2,500 school-based health centers serving over 6.3 million students across the country.”

Adesope cited benefits of health centers in schools. “There’s a lot of research which shows that school-based health centers reduce absenteeism up to 29%, increasing the time students are in classrooms. Research shows that graduation rates improve from 4 to 21%.”

CHN’s health care team at West Side will be staffed by a nurse practitioner, a licensed social worker, and certified medical assistants.

Edgewater Health, like CHN has multiple health care centers, but it also provides mental health care along with primary care health services at its 10 facilities in and around Gary.

“Edgewater Health is the only Community Mental Health Center in Gary,” said Karen Bishop-Morris, Edgewater’s Chief Development and Communications Officer. “We have the specialties to deal with children as well as adults with mental illnesses.”

West Side would be Edgewater’s first school health center.

“We are uniquely poised to provide integrated health care at West Side,” said Dr. Jarret Browning, Chief Medical Officer at Edgewater. “We plan on staffing West Side with primary and behavioral health care nurse practitioners with our physicians as backup.”

“This is not a new relationship with the Gary schools. It’s an expansion of a partnership we’ve had for over 50 years. We’re already on site offering day treatment and crisis counseling,” said Bishop-Morris.

Edgewater Health’s chief executive is Danita Johnson-Woods, who is also a Gary school board member.

“In the event that there would be a contract of any sort, then said contract would come before the board and Dr. Woods would naturally abstain from the vote,” said Bishop-Morris.

“Woods already has a conflict of interest document on file with GCSC based on the services currently being provided by Edgewater Health to the district,” Supt. Stokes said.

The costs for patient care are not the school districts’ responsibility. Providers will accept payments from Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance, and on a sliding fee based on the patient’s ability to pay.

Story Posted:11/01/2024