Students of Albert Cammon Middle and St. Rose Elementary schools will have the option of going to a new health clinic built between the two schools starting in late April.
A new health center is being built which will cater only to students of the two schools and will provide medical care, dental care and social work.
“Basically it’s a modular unit that a grant paid for,” said Mary Lou Sumrall, director of special programs for the school district.
Not only will school district nurses be present at the clinic, but there will also be a licensed physician’s assistant to write prescriptions when needed.
While the new center sits on school land, it is owned and operated by the St. Charles Parish Health Center, according Sumrall.
“This is beyond the school nurse,” Sumrall said. “It goes way beyond what we can do in the schools. Everything that the St. Charles Parish Health Unit offers, this will offer.”
Making the center a reality was a two-year endeavor.
“First there was a grant to study the feasibility to even have something like this on campus and that took well over a year. They had meetings once a month that were open to the public,” Sumrall said. “They got a lot of money just to study the feasibility to have something like this in our school system.”
Many prominent members of the community were involved in the project, Sumrall said, including a state senator and local School Board representatives.
Only students of the two schools will be able to use the facility with parental permission on school days between 7:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. each day. Parents, siblings and friends are not allowed to use the center.
The center will only be open during the nine months that school is in session each year.
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