Year by year Assessment
In 2005, Breath of Life Children's Clinic cared for 3534 children, giving 6,128 immunizations and seeing 1,894 sick visits. In 2006, that number escalated to demonstrate 3,733 children served with 6,305 immunizations and 3,083 sick visits.
No child in our community should go untreated due to a family’s financial hardship!
In 2006 for every $1.00 received in donations to the clinic we delivered $1.77 in services.
Breath of Life Children’s clinic had a great year in 2007.
The Children’s clinic served 3776 unduplicated children providing 7340 immunizations and 6445 total patient visits.
No child in our community should go untreated due to a family’s financial hardship!
Needs Assessment
In April 2005, Comptroller of Public Accounts Carol Keeton Rylander commissioned a report entitled “Special Report: TEXAS UNINSURED: A Hidden Burden on Texas Employers and Communities” in which she stated:
“The report of the Houston Public Health Task Force found a fragmented and duplicative public health delivery system; inadequate access to outpatient care for low-income and uninsured residents and an unacceptably high and growing number of uninsured residents who obtain their health care in emergency rooms.”
Inappropriate use of emergency rooms is expected to grow from 355,393 visits in 2002 to 490,835 in 2015. In 2005, these emergency rooms were on divert status up to 30% of the time. Startling and frightening is the fact that by the time a child reaches the emergency room a common cold may have advanced to Pneumonia, or a child may have developed complications from a childhood disease because he or she was unable to obtain the necessary vaccination.
The Breath of Life Children Center clinic has seen a demand for our services increase. As stated in 2002 government reports, “252,000 of Texas’s 1.4 million uninsured children are residing in Harris County, the largest concentration in the State.”
Parents and guardians who are unable to provide financial support and/or health insurance coverage for their children must rely on private healthcare organizations, such as the Breath of Life Children's Center clinic. The Children’s clinic is available for all children in need. Our mission is to offer high quality healthcare to the under-served in our community.
http://houston.bizjournals.com/houston/stories/2008/10/27/daily49.html
Friday, October 31, 2008 - 10:07 AM CDT
Study: Texas
Houston
One in five children living in
The study, “Left Behind: Texas’s Uninsured Children,” found that 1.4 million children, or 20.5 percent of the population aged 18 and under were without health insurance in the three years from 2005 to 2007.
The number of uninsured children in the state grew by more than 33,000 between 2003 and 2007, according to the study.
Of the children without health insurance, 89.5 percent lived in a household where at least one parent worked, and 73.9 percent lived in a household where at least one family member worked at a year-round, full-time job.
Sixty-five percent of the children lived in low-income families — $35,200 for a family of three in 2008.
Washington D.C.-based Families USA is a national organization for health care consumers