General health and well being are essential factors for success, especially for a college student. However, for many students, these factors can sometimes be a struggle.
For those of us that work a job and go to school, fatigue often wears us down to the point that we are vulnerable to illness. In the meantime, we have to commute to and from campus, and for those of us who utilize public transit, we expose ourselves to all manners of germs and the elements as we stand outside waiting for that train or bus.
And when the inevitable illness or accident happens, some of us are put further at risk when insurance comes into play. For those of us that are still covered under our parents’ plans, this usually is not an issue. But for the many who do not have the luxury of insurance, a trip to the doctor is more often than not, something we are unable to afford.
For those of us who have been in this situation, the only places to turn to are free clinics, which often have long waiting lists, or the Health and Wellness Center here at University of Missouri-St. Louis.
But for those students who have utilized this resource, a painful truth has more than likely become evident.
Though UM-St. Louis’ student health services are professional, they are far from complete or easy to access. For instance, in order to get an appointment at the Health and Wellness Center, one must call the office when it opens at 8 a.m. This is a hurdle, not just because of the hour but also because the Health and Wellness office only has one phone line, and calling the line when it is busy just gets you an answering machine.
If you are lucky enough to get an appointment, but are more than 10 minutes late for it—even if you call in ahead of time and tell the receptionist you will be late—your appointment will be canceled and you will be told to start the whole process over again at 8 a.m. the next morning.
Furthermore, while the care you receive in a visit to the Heath and Wellness Center is excellent, its limitations can be seen on the prescription you are given as you walk out the door, as you will notice that Health and Wellness has only two nurse practitioners on staff to handle a constant deluge of patients.
At this time of year, when many of us are contracting and passing along some kind of bug on a week-to-week basis, The Current believes that these services are far from adequate and are lacking overall.
While we realize that Health and Wellness is set up to serve as a triage clinic to serve students, we believe that its services could be more robust and easier for students to access. We do not know why there is such a lack of attention given to this vital resource, but we at The Current believe that, whatever the cost, it is high time for these services to be made better.
We believe that if funding is an issue, this is something we would be willing to pay. A minor increase in our student fees would be, in our opinion, welcomed if that money could be used to implement and provide more complete healthcare to our students.
Please know that we are not asking for a facility that can perform a kidney transplant, only an expanded Health and Wellness Center that can treat more patients more quickly effectively.
And please, at least add another phone line.
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