MONROE, La. – Monroe City School leaders have a plan to provide more health care in south Monroe while training students to enter the medical field. They want to build a school-based health care center at Wossman High School.
Principal Dr. Harrington Watson III says the facility would provide two services: A new clinic for the community and training for students who are interested in the medical field.
“We don’t have a lot of clinics or actual places where people can go in this and as far as the community is concerned,” Dr. Watson said.
Plans are to have the health care center located at Wossman’s former fieldhouse, which would put the clinic within walking distance for area residents.
“We were blesseto have the opportunity to have a building. So right now, the thing was about getting the building and putting it in a place where kids, community members also would have the access to health care,” Dr. Watson said.
Meanwhile, students would be enrolled in a year-long program and train on-site to prepare for a career in the medical field.
“We’ll have professionals on-site who are already certified and able to treat students and then, we also have classes that will work with the kids. So you’ll have your CNA classes, you’ll have your Med-Tech classes, you have classes available to them, the EMR classes, so our kids can be certified when they leave Wossman High School. They’re ready to go and get jobs,” he said.
Watson says having healthcare on campus is important. He says some students lack medical attention because they don’t have access to healthcare or insurance.
“If you have health care, Medicaid, things like that, it takes care of all of it. So all the kids have to do is have parental consent. So that’s something that we’ll work on is talking to parents before school starts. Before we get the clinic, before we open we will talk to them about having their consent to go ahead and allow their child to get whatever they need taken care of on-site,” said Dr. Watson said.
If the school board approves to hire an architect, the facility is expected to be completed by August 2022.
