4 Brooklyn School-Based Health Clinics Closing Due to State Budget Cuts
(DNAINFO) Amy Zimmer | August 6, 2017 — Four school-based health clinics run by SUNY Downstate are closing — and parents and local officials are mounting a campaign to save them.
SUNY Downstate confirmed the decision to DNAinfo on Friday after word of the closings started trickling out to staff.
School-based health clinics, which see students free of charge, regardless of insurance status, offer much more than a traditional school nurse. They are overseen by a certified physician and have, at minimum, a nurse practitioner who can administer medicines and write prescriptions for students.
There are 145 school-based health centers serving more than 345 schools across the boroughs. Because of state budget cuts and changes in the way the State Department of Health’s allocates funding for these centers — which took effect July 1 — these facilities are under threat. SUNY Downstate is the first to announce closures.
SUNY Downstate saw its state funding grant for its clinics drop nearly 70 percent to $198,000 from $669,000.
The clinics located in Park Slope’s M.S. 51 and the Carroll Gardens building shared by the Brooklyn New School and Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies are shutting down. Also closing is the clinic in Boerum Hill’s P.S. 38 and the one shared by the School for International Studies, Digital Arts and Cinema Technology High School, District 75’s Star Academy and Success Academy Cobble Hill. SUNY Downstate’s clinic at P.S. 13 in East New York will remain open.