WORKING POOR STAND TO RECEIVE NEEDED TREATMENT.

Byline: Anne Burke Daily News Staff Writer

The kitchen counter at Ana Sibrian's apartment is crowded with colored bottles full of syrupy medicines - Tylenol and Nyquil, cod liver oil purchased in her native El Salvador, and an anti-nausea potion from the neighborhood Mexican store.

Sibrian knows that these nonprescription medications aren't always the best way to treat her family's ailments, but with no health insurance, she says it's all she can afford.

``It costs $40 for a doctor's visit, and more for the prescriptions,'' said Sibrian. ``We just don't have that kind of money.''

Sibrian is a stay-at-home mom who cares for Francisco, 9, and Hector, 8 months. Her husband, Francisco Sr., brings home about $320 a week as a mechanic's assistant, but he has no medical or dental insurance.

That could change next year. Kaiser Permanente announced Monday that it will make $100 million available next year for subsidized health insurance for the children of California's uninsured, working poor.

Families would pay 75 percent to 25 percent of the cost of premiums, Kaiser said.

Unfortunately, the help won't come soon enough for little Francisco, who had a fever of 101 degrees last week and was coughing and sniffling Monday.

Ana Sibrian never took her youngster to a doctor, even though nurses at Canoga Park Elementary School, where Francisco is in the third grade, told her to do so.

Instead, Ana Sibrian gave her son Tylenol, and is hoping that he'll get better on his own.

``My husband needs $300 to $400 worth of dental work on just one molar, so we have to get that taken care of first because he's in a lot of pain and he's got to go to work,'' Ana Sibrian explained.

Little Francisco's lack of medical care worries school nurses like Janice Lake. She wishes that Ana Sibrian had taken Francisco to Olive View Medical Center - even though it's a long bus ride away in Sylmar - where affordable, monthly payments can be arranged.

Lake, who works at Canoga Park Elementary School, said she sees children every day who don't get the medical care they need because their families are working poor, with no insurance.

A kindergartner whose sore throat went untreated landed in the hospital with rheumatic fever. A little girl with eye cancer still can't get the new eye she needs. A boy's broken arm went untreated for four days. A girl with Bell's palsy, a facial condition caused by nerve damage, went untreated until Lake diagnosed the problem at school.

School nurses also were the first to diagnose the serious heart murmur of a young boy who desperately needed surgery, Lake said.

``I'm really excited about this insurance program,'' she said. ``It's definitely needed.''

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PHOTO Ana Sibrian relies on non-prescription medicines to treat her sons, Hector and Francisco, when they become ill.

John McCoy/Daily News