Providing care for hurting children is the hallmark of Boys Ranch.
Broken hearts, shattered lives and wounded minds are childhood conditions we make better on a daily basis at Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch.
The children we serve also get excellent medical care.
After a nearly year-long absence, Boys Ranch recently has been able to once again offer chiropractic care to the children we serve. (The practice originally was added to our clinic’s services in 2015.) A number of our youth used the service regularly. A new chiropractor will be onsite twice a month to see and treat residents, staff and staff children.
“The majority of residents who receive referrals to see the chiropractor come to the clinic complaining of low back pain which could stem from poor posture, injuries while playing sports, or a variety of other reasons such as high body mass index numbers or even body positioning while sleeping affecting the alignment in their back,” said Boys Ranch Medical Clinic Manager Joyful Brown.
Not every child in our care has the awareness or understanding to ask for medical care when something isn’t feeling right. This is why houseparents, youth workers, caseworkers and others at Boys Ranch are trained to know what to watch for regarding both mental and physical health.
When a need is identified, a child doesn’t have to go far to get the care they need.
Through our onsite medical clinic, we’re able to provide immediate availability of medical staff 40 hours per week, and ambulance and paramedic care at any moment of the day or night. This means our children don’t have to travel an 80-mile round trip to the city and back to access health care. When fevers are high, throats are sore or a little body is trembling, 80 miles feels like an eternity. Instead, that child can be brought to the clinic within 5 minutes of their group home, still wearing pajamas, if necessary
Specialists representing the areas of dentistry, ophthalmology, and allergy care see children at the ranch on a regular schedule, too. Contracted physicians staff the clinic and make referrals to specialists as needed.
It was 1969 when Boys Ranch first offered any medical services on campus. Dental services began the following year. The 14,854-square-foot clinic originally housed a hospital ward, however, today this space has been remodeled and provides office area for counseling staff.
Once diagnosed with an illness, a child doesn’t wait long to begin treatment. We contract with a pharmacy service that supplies and delivers all prescriptions ordered for our residents. For emergency medications, we utilize a 24-hour Amarillo pharmacy and have staff retrieve the medication.
While our clinic offers a safeguard against potential tragedies for our children and staff –something significant such as a rattlesnake bite or a guest’s fall — we also have ambulance service and paramedics available around the clock.
In our area, 911 calls dispatched through Oldham County are paged to our onsite paramedics. Boys Ranch works with a company that provides two onsite paramedics and two ambulances to be on campus 24/7/365. Our ambulances average 82 runs per year, including on-campus calls to service staff and residents, as well as calls to highway accidents near our campus.