Odem-Edroy ISD is bringing a new mobile pediatric unit to Odem, expanding healthcare access for families who previously had to travel long distances for care.<\/p>\n
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas \u2014 According to researchers at Texas State University, 75 percent of Texas children live more than an hour away from the nearest pediatric care facility. Families in smaller communities like Odem know the challenges well, but a new resource is aiming to close that gap.<\/p>\n
A mobile pediatric health unit is now serving families in the Odem-Edroy ISD, offering on-site medical services twice a week. Parents like Amanda Alfaro are excited for the addition.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this area it’s limited what we have access to. It just requires a further drive, more time,\u201d Alfaro said.<\/p>\n
Alfaro recalled having to take her sick child to Calallen Tuesday morning because no pediatric options were available in town.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cLast time actually with my same child we went in, we thought it was an appendicitis scare, and they didn’t have the appropriate whatever they needed to properly diagnose that, so we would have had to go all the way to Driscoll Children’s Hospital,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Javier Garcia, Director of Operations at the Community Action Corporation of South Texas (CACOST), showed 3NEWS inside of the clinic designed specifically for pediatric care.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe pediatric mobile unit. You have an exam room over here on this side. As you can see, it’s equipped with all the services needed to provide pediatric services,\u201d Garcia said.<\/p>\n
The project is the result of a partnership between the school district and CACOST.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’re going to be able to provide sick visits, immunizations, sports physicals,\u201d Garcia said.<\/p>\n
He emphasized that cost will not be a barrier.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe accept Medicaid, private insurance, and for those who are uninsured, we have a sliding fee scale. So nobody will be turned away. Everybody can be seen,\u201d Garcia said.<\/p>\n
Garcia and Superintendent Yolanda Carr have worked together for six years to bring the mobile clinic to the district.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is access for medical care to our kids, not just those struggling, but parents that have to take off a full day of work or half a day,\u201d Carr said. \u201cWe want our kids at school, we want to make sure that they’re healthy.\u201d<\/p>\n
The mobile health unit will operate in Odem-Edroy ISD twice a week. On other days, it could travel to other school districts across South Texas, further expanding healthcare access for children in rural communities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Odem-Edroy ISD is bringing a new mobile pediatric unit to Odem, expanding healthcare access for families who previously…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178900,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":["post-178899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi-headlines","tag-corpus-christi-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}