{"id":93339,"date":"2025-08-19T02:54:14","date_gmt":"2025-08-19T02:54:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/93339\/"},"modified":"2025-08-19T02:54:14","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T02:54:14","slug":"families-in-this-n-j-town-needed-better-health-care-medical-center-in-school-parking-lot-will-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/93339\/","title":{"rendered":"Families in this N.J. town needed better health care. Medical center in school parking lot will help."},"content":{"rendered":"

It was obvious to Superintendent John A. Ravally that students in Franklin Township Public Schools<\/a> needed better access to health care.<\/p>\n

Kids were missing school, but not due to illness, according to the administrator.<\/p>\n

\u201cChildren often missed school because they couldn\u2019t get the vital health services they needed, such as examinations and immunizations,\u201d Ravally said in a statement sent to NJ Advance Media.<\/p>\n

So, Ravally decided to bring health care to students and their families. The district will open a community health center this year at Franklin Middle School\u2019s Hamilton Street campus through a partnership with Zufall Health. Patients don\u2019t have to attend Franklin Township schools or even be residents of the town to visit the health center.<\/p>\n

The development comes after three years of Zufall Health already serving the Franklin Township Public School community with its mobile van, which is a licensed health care facility in and of itself. Since 2022, Zufall Health has visited the district two days a week, forming close relationships with the nurses, students and families.<\/p>\n

\u201cPartnering with Zufall Health has made all the difference. Zufall Health, through our school-based health center, is able to offer convenient, affordable health care to our student families and I am incredibly proud of what we\u2019ve accomplished together,\u201d said Ravally.<\/p>\n

He continued: \u201cProviding our students with health care services is vital to keeping them healthy, in school, and ready to learn. We\u2019re excited for the next phase of our partnership and the opportunity to serve even more students, their families and to be able to reach out to the larger Franklin Community.\u201d<\/p>\n

The free-standing health center is not connected to the school, but instead located at the far end of its parking lot. It has four medical exam rooms, four dental exam rooms, two vision exam rooms and one office for behavioral health.<\/p>\n

According to a video recording<\/a>, the township council approved a resolution<\/a> in June of 2024 to contribute approximately $1.7 million of Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds to the project.<\/p>\n

Mayor Phillip Kramer told NJ Advance Media it was an easy decision for the township.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know a hungry kid doesn\u2019t learn. Well, a sick kid doesn\u2019t learn either. We need to support them,\u201d Kramer said in an interview.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they\u2019re going to be active citizens who are going to help move our society on, we need to help them do that in every way we can. And in talking with Zufall, we realized that it could help the whole community eventually. How do you say no to that?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

The building is owned by the school district, but leased to Dover-based Zufall Health Services, the company that provides the medical services, at no cost.<\/p>\n

Zufall Health is an independent, state-licensed, and federally approved community health center network serving patients across seven counties in northern and central New Jersey.<\/p>\n

The health center receives funding from a combination of government and private grants, revenues from patient services, and private donations. Roughly half of all patients Zufall Health sees are uninsured, with most of the remaining on Medicaid, NJ Family Care, or Medicare.<\/p>\n

However, people don\u2019t have to be uninsured to visit the new Zufall Health community health center in Franklin Township, or any of their health centers for that matter.<\/p>\n

Initially, the health center will be open two days a week. It will begin offering more days as demand grows, said President and Chief Executive Officer Fran Palm.<\/p>\n

While a school might not seem like the obvious location for a health center, Palm said it allows for more preventative health care.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re reaching the kids and their parents at a young age, you have a lot of opportunity to teach and instill good habits, as well as catch health problems early so that you have a chance to mitigate their long-term effect through early intervention,\u201d said Palm.<\/p>\n

Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com<\/a> with a subscription.<\/p>\n

Jackie Roman<\/a> may be reached at jroman@njadvancemedia.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was obvious to Superintendent John A. Ravally that students in Franklin Township Public Schools needed better access…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93340,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,63445,253,63447,63446],"class_list":["post-93339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-health-center","tag-healthcare","tag-preventative-health-care","tag-zufall-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93340"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}