TOLEDO – In a mobile clinic in a church parking lot, registered nurse Gloria Smith prepped Vibe Carswell, 7, for a finger-poke lead check.
“At any given time, there are 3,400 children with lead poisoning in Lucas County,” she said, stressing each syllable of the statistic. “That’s crazy.”
Smith is the lead case manager for the Toledo Lucas County Health Department. Of the health department’s three lead caseworkers, she is the one whose sole focus is on children who test positive.
“My goal is to educate the parents, to help them to get those levels down as quickly as possible,” Smith said…