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A day with the doctor
Bailey Bonfigli, 4, gets her ear examined and cleaned by Dr. Daniel Sooy at Kaiser Permanente's annual Neighbors in Health program.
JEFF KAN LEE / PDPublished: Sunday, August 1, 2010 at 7:52 p.m.
Last Modified: Sunday, August 1, 2010 at 7:52 p.m.
With gauze pads still in his mouth, Justin Johnson, 10, wasn't talking after a trip to the dentist on Sunday.
But the Cloverdale boy flashed an emphatic thumbs-up minutes after Dr. Ken Choi finished pulling two teeth and filling a third one during the Neighbors in Health event at Kaiser Permanente's Old Redwood Highway campus.
“You have to get this done. His teeth are important,” said Justin's grandmother, Shelly Matthews, a Kaiser pediatrics nurse.
Justin's mother recently lost her insurance, so Matthews jumped at the chance to get $840 worth of dental work done for free.
“We're trying to change people's lives,” said Dr. Jose Morales, chief of pediatrics at Kaiser. The fifth annual event, staffed by about 500 volunteers, took over Kaiser's Stein Medical Offices for a day and served 305 children and teenagers.
Scheduled in late summer, the event hosted by Kaiser and numerous partners offers free physical exams, immunizations, vision and hearing checks and dental services to uninsured minors.
The immediate idea is to get kids “tuned up and ready for school,” Morales said, but also to get them enrolled in health care plans and with primary care providers.
“Uninsured kids become uninsurable adults,” Morales said, noting that chronic childhood illnesses can turn into pre-existing conditions that currently make it difficult to obtain health insurance.
Getting children from low-income families into dental care is especially difficult, Morales said, because many dentists either don't see Medi-Cal patients or have long waiting lists for appointments.
Kaiser does not offer dental care, but brought in a mobile dental clinic for Neighbors in Health.
“We need to have this here every three months,” Matthews said.
Bailey Bonfigli, 4, of Santa Rosa squirmed in her chair as Dr. Daniel Sooy, a Kaiser ear, nose and throat doctor, examined her ears.
“Thank you to everyone for doing this,” said her mother, Jennifer Bonfigli, who has no health insurance. Bailey, who is about to start preschool, had her eyes and ears checked and her immunizations.
“It's a good way to spend the afternoon,” Sooy said.
Kids who turn out to need eyeglasses or hearing aids can return to Kaiser to get them fitted.
Justin and Bailey are among the 14,730 Sonoma County children and teenagers under 19 who lack health insurance, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report last week.
That total, representing 13.4 percent of the county's youth population, remains above the statewide rate, despite a decade-long campaign to get local children and teens enrolled in health care plans.
“The bottom line is there are still thousands of kids without (health) coverage,” said Pedro Toledo, enrollment coordinator for Healthy Kids Sonoma County.
Healthy Kids, formed in 2005 by a coalition of more than 20 community organizations, has enrolled 10,580 children and teens from low-income families in health plans.
That effort brought to 44,160 the number of kids covered under the three plans Healthy Kids offers, with nearly two-thirds of them (28,057) covered under Medi-Cal.
Healthy Families, like Medi-Cal a publicly funded health plan, covers 11,856 youths. Healthy Kids, a locally funded insurance program, covers 4,247 children.
The campaign to get low-income kids into health coverage dates back to 1998, when the county's network of community health centers launched an enrollment drive, Toledo said.
“Health insurance for children is critical,” said Dr. Mary Maddux-Gonzalez, county public health officer.
Studies show that children with insurance “have better access to preventive care that is so important to children reaching their health potential,” she said.
Uninsured children are more likely to experience delays in treatment “for acute, often painful, conditions,” Maddux-Gonzalez said. They also miss more school days due to illness, she said.
But in spite of the local effort, the county probably has more uninsured children now than it did in 1998, Toledo said, largely because of an increasing number of low-income families.
The sour economy, with 18,000 Sonoma County jobs lost since 2007, has also cost families their health coverage, Toledo and Maddux-Gonzalez said.
The census report, based on 2007 data, does not include that impact, they said.
“There's still a lot of work to be done,” Toledo said.
Sonoma (13.4 percent) and Mendocino County (13.6 percent) had similar rates of uninsured kids, the census report said. Both were above the statewide rate of 12.4 percent.
Lake County had only 8.7 percent uninsured kids. Health officials could not be reached for comment on the comparatively low rate.
Massachusetts (4.3 percent) and Hawaii (5.4 percent), both states with model health care programs, had the nation's lowest rates of uninsured children, the census report said.
Texas had the highest rate at 19.5 percent, followed by New Mexico (18 percent) and Florida (17.7 percent).
Among kids from Sonoma County families at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level, 25.4 percent were not insured, the report said.
Statewide, 18.1 percent of kids at that income level were uninsured.
The income threshold for a family of four at 200 percent of poverty level was $43,472 in 2007, the data year for the census report.
You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com.
With gauze pads still in his mouth, Justin Johnson, 10, wasn't talking after a trip to the dentist on Sunday.
But the Cloverdale boy flashed an emphatic thumbs-up minutes after Dr. Ken Choi finished pulling two teeth and filling a third one during the Neighbors in Health event at Kaiser Permanente's Old Redwood Highway campus.
“You have to get this done. His teeth are important,” said Justin's grandmother, Shelly Matthews, a Kaiser pediatrics nurse.
Justin's mother recently lost her insurance, so Matthews jumped at the chance to get $840 worth of dental work done for free.
“We're trying to change people's lives,” said Dr. Jose Morales, chief of pediatrics at Kaiser. The fifth annual event, staffed by about 500 volunteers, took over Kaiser's Stein Medical Offices for a day and served 305 children and teenagers.
Scheduled in late summer, the event hosted by Kaiser and numerous partners offers free physical exams, immunizations, vision and hearing checks and dental services to uninsured minors.
The immediate idea is to get kids “tuned up and ready for school,” Morales said, but also to get them enrolled in health care plans and with primary care providers.
“Uninsured kids become uninsurable adults,” Morales said, noting that chronic childhood illnesses can turn into pre-existing conditions that currently make it difficult to obtain health insurance.
Getting children from low-income families into dental care is especially difficult, Morales said, because many dentists either don't see Medi-Cal patients or have long waiting lists for appointments.
Kaiser does not offer dental care, but brought in a mobile dental clinic for Neighbors in Health.
“We need to have this here every three months,” Matthews said.
Bailey Bonfigli, 4, of Santa Rosa squirmed in her chair as Dr. Daniel Sooy, a Kaiser ear, nose and throat doctor, examined her ears.
“Thank you to everyone for doing this,” said her mother, Jennifer Bonfigli, who has no health insurance. Bailey, who is about to start preschool, had her eyes and ears checked and her immunizations.
“It's a good way to spend the afternoon,” Sooy said.
Kids who turn out to need eyeglasses or hearing aids can return to Kaiser to get them fitted.
Justin and Bailey are among the 14,730 Sonoma County children and teenagers under 19 who lack health insurance, according to a U.S. Census Bureau report last week.
That total, representing 13.4 percent of the county's youth population, remains above the statewide rate, despite a decade-long campaign to get local children and teens enrolled in health care plans.
“The bottom line is there are still thousands of kids without (health) coverage,” said Pedro Toledo, enrollment coordinator for Healthy Kids Sonoma County.
Healthy Kids, formed in 2005 by a coalition of more than 20 community organizations, has enrolled 10,580 children and teens from low-income families in health plans.
That effort brought to 44,160 the number of kids covered under the three plans Healthy Kids offers, with nearly two-thirds of them (28,057) covered under Medi-Cal.
Healthy Families, like Medi-Cal a publicly funded health plan, covers 11,856 youths. Healthy Kids, a locally funded insurance program, covers 4,247 children.
The campaign to get low-income kids into health coverage dates back to 1998, when the county's network of community health centers launched an enrollment drive, Toledo said.
“Health insurance for children is critical,” said Dr. Mary Maddux-Gonzalez, county public health officer.
Studies show that children with insurance “have better access to preventive care that is so important to children reaching their health potential,” she said.
Uninsured children are more likely to experience delays in treatment “for acute, often painful, conditions,” Maddux-Gonzalez said. They also miss more school days due to illness, she said.
But in spite of the local effort, the county probably has more uninsured children now than it did in 1998, Toledo said, largely because of an increasing number of low-income families.
The sour economy, with 18,000 Sonoma County jobs lost since 2007, has also cost families their health coverage, Toledo and Maddux-Gonzalez said.
The census report, based on 2007 data, does not include that impact, they said.
“There's still a lot of work to be done,” Toledo said.
Sonoma (13.4 percent) and Mendocino County (13.6 percent) had similar rates of uninsured kids, the census report said. Both were above the statewide rate of 12.4 percent.
Lake County had only 8.7 percent uninsured kids. Health officials could not be reached for comment on the comparatively low rate.
Massachusetts (4.3 percent) and Hawaii (5.4 percent), both states with model health care programs, had the nation's lowest rates of uninsured children, the census report said.
Texas had the highest rate at 19.5 percent, followed by New Mexico (18 percent) and Florida (17.7 percent).
Among kids from Sonoma County families at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level, 25.4 percent were not insured, the report said.
Statewide, 18.1 percent of kids at that income level were uninsured.
The income threshold for a family of four at 200 percent of poverty level was $43,472 in 2007, the data year for the census report.
You can reach Staff Writer Guy Kovner at 521-5457 or guy.kovner@pressdemocrat.com.
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