Are children at the heart of your business?

Children are not considered to be a "Business" issue. The faces of children in need grab at one's heart, but they don't appear in the business section of our newspapers. Yet children and the health of children can affect the bottom line of Valley business. Every San Fernando Valley child has

When a child is ill, even occasionally, he or she requires care and supervision. For most working people, this means that one parent stays home with the child and misses work. Missing an occasional workday or two to care for a sick child is generally not a real problem for business. But childhood chronic diseases such as asthma and diabetes are on the rise. Unless these children are under the consistent supervision of a doctor and their conditions are managed carefully, they will end up in crisis. Their parents will take the child to our over-crowded emergency rooms and wait hours for care. If the crisis is severe, hospitalization could be required. Rather than taking one working parent away from the job for a day or two, these circumstances will surely take working parents away from their jobs, perhaps for an extended period of time again and again.

In such cases the productivity of the business(s), the emotional well-being of the overworked co-workers and the bottom line of business profit can be truly affected. So, perhaps our business community should begin to look at children as a 'business' issue. There are an estimated 250,000 children in the San Fernando Valley who lack health insurance and are therefore not under the consistent care of a physician. That's a lot of parents who might be missing work this week to care for sick children. It is vital that outreach to the parents of these children to assist them in enrolling in all available government programs continues. It is vital that these children, insured or not, receive the preventative care and condition management they need to keep them healthy and their parents productive and on the job. Taking care of our community's children is truly very good business.

Judi Rose is Director of Public Affairs for Valley Community Clinic, a non-profit, charitable agency providing free and low-cost health care to the uninsured since 1970. In mid-May, the Clinic opened its Pediatric Center for low-income children.