FORT WORTH -- Too many times it seems indigent families have to go to the emergency room for basic healthcare. Cook Children’s Healthcare system has a better idea, taking healthcare to the needy neighborhoods, and yesterday they got a $1 million boost.
Dr. Ashoo Rao, a pediatrician working at Cook Children’s north side clinic, examines 3-year-old Eduardo, a routine procedure at the clinic. Eduardo’s mother says that without the clinic she would have to take him to the emergency room at the hospital, and wait all day, even when it’s not an emergency.
The staff at the northside neighborhood clinic sees about 100 patients a day, that’s 25,000 a year. Most of those patients live right here in the neighborhood.
The neighborhood clinic program works so well that Bank of America has donated $1 million so that Cook Children’s can build two more clinics: one in Arlington and one in South Fort Worth. That’ll make four clinics in all.
“Each one of these clinics would probably prevent about one to two children a day from having to be admitted to the hospital, because they received the preventive care that kept them well,” said Russell Tolman, President of Cook Children’s.
“It feels good because it feels like I’m doing some service to a population that needs it,” said Dr. Rao.
So for immunizations, rashes, asthma, colds, and flu, the neighborhood clinics make it possible for people who can’t afford healthcare to schedule a normal trip to the doctor’s office.
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