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THURSDAY, DEC. 2, 2021
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THE INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER AT BOSTON UNIVERSITY
YEAR LI. VOLUME C. ISSUE XIV
Students complain of long wait times, frequent outside referrals at Student Health Services
Cici Yu Daily Free Press Staff
Boston University students have brought up a number of issues at Student Health Services, including long wait times to schedule appointments and frequent referrals to other healthcare providers outside of BU. SHS is composed of five clinical departments — Primary Care, Wellness and Prevention, Behavioral Medicine, Athletic Training and the Sexual Assault Response and Prevention Center — as listed on their website. Full-time students can schedule appointments through the online portal Patient Connect. Shana Weitzen, a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences, said she sought to schedule an appointment with SHS because of an urgent health concern, but was asked to wait for almost a week. “They got back to me one or two days later [saying] that I didn’t have an appointment for six days,” she said. “By then, I needed to have the problem resolved, this was something that I felt was really urgent.” Weitzen added she originally called SHS after booking the available appointment online to see if it was possible to get an earlier appointment, but she said she was instead referred to Urgent Care — an outside healthcare facility which treats a general range of illnesses and ailments on a mostly walk-in basis. “I literally couldn’t go to an Urgent Care for this because the services I needed aren’t offered,” she said. “I almost took the train home and skipped class to go to my doctor at home.” Weitzen said she ultimately canceled the SHS appointment after calling and getting help from her provider at home. SHS director Judy Platt said students should always call SHS in the
event of a medical emergency. “When you go online to book, there is an acknowledgment that what you are dealing with is not an emergency,” she said. “If you have an emergency we want to hear from you because there are healthcare providers within primary care and behavioral medicine every day that will see emergency situations.” Platt noted that healthcare providers can now be directly messaged on Patient Connect to avoid the possibility of students missing callbacks from SHS. SHS has implemented changes recently to increase urgent emergency services in behavioral medicine and
primary care, Platt added. Claire Yu, a sophomore in CAS, said a Nov. 9 appointment she made with Behavioral Medicine was canceled by the time she arrived six or seven minutes late, with Dec. 2 being the next available appointment. “SHS did not provide me any guideline to inform me that I cannot be late. Instead, they asked me to come no earlier than five minutes before the appointment time,” Yu wrote in the email. “I didn’t see any guideline that says my appointment would be canceled if I’m late.” Christina Yin, a senior in the College of Communication, said when she made a mental health appoint-
ment with SHS in September, the earliest available time slot was in mid-October. “I just don’t think it’s the best idea to just have this huge time gap in between,” Yin said. “I feel like I cured myself before the appointment happened because it’s just way too long.” Platt said wait times for Behavioral Medicine have been longer this semester compared to previous ones, but added SHS is “actively working” to increase access to mental healthcare and add more behavioral medicine providers. She said many students have booked appointments online and failed to show up more often this se-
CLARE ONG | DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF
The Boston University Student Health Services entrance. BU students expressed frustration with SHS operations, ranging from long wait times while scheduling appointments to frequent referrals to outside health care services.
mester, noting that as a result, they “take that appointment from another student.” “That has happened more this year than any other year,” Platt said. “We could give many more appointments every week if people canceled their appointment if they weren’t going to show up.” Platt added that students can cancel their appointments online. Yin said SHS should offer more detailed guidelines beyond the existing information on healthcare and insurance in the United States for international students and others who are unfamiliar with the system, even if students end up being referred to an outside provider. Platt said SHS recently hired a new marketing and communications professional in order to help spread information about healthcare services and wellness tips on social media platforms such as Instagram, but added she urges students to send SHS feedback and reach out with concerns. “We’re always in a state of continual improvement,” Platt said. “Unless we get the feedback, you don’t know, and if you don’t know about something, you can’t change it.” Platt added that SHS’s mission is to be the first resource for students and quickly care for them, and asked for patience as they continue through the challenges of the pandemic. “This has been an incredibly hard almost two years for so many people, it’s been incredibly hard in health care as well,” she said. “We really want to be the first stop for students, and if there’s anything that we can take care of quickly so that students can feel better and get better, that’s our main goal.” A longer version of this story is available on our website www.dailyfreepress.com
StuGov hears BUnited platform updates, progress made on Fall semester goals Anna Vidergar Daily Free Press Staff Boston University Student Government heard BUnited platform updates centered on addressing on-campus sexual misconduct and concerns with Student Health Services’ gender-affirming healthcare, and a renewed commitment to allocating funds toward local businesses in a meeting Monday night. The meeting began with platform updates from BUnited, StuGov’s executive board for the 2021 to 2022 academic year. BUnited ran on three pillars — Uniting Health, Uniting Justice and Uniting Community — and used the Senate meeting to share updates on their progress as the semester draws to a close. The executive board announced their goals to focus on improving sexual misconduct prevention resources and advocacy for students this past September, and discussed progress made in Monday’s meeting.
Committees within StuGov such as 16,000 Strong have addressed sexual assault on campus through an event centered around consent called F.R.I.E.S, which stands for freely given, reversible, informed, enthusiastic and specific. Aimee Mein, a senior in the College of Communication and vice president of Internal Affairs, said representatives from several campus organizations plan to speak with the University administration on how SHS can better support sexual misconduct survivors. “We have representatives from [BU’s] Queer Activist Collective as well as Campus Survivors, talking about how SHS can be a more welcoming place to survivors,” Mein said. “So we’re going to communicate that information with both SHS and other admin such as Dean [Battaglino].” Hessann Farooqi, a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences and executive vice president, said BUnited is working with Queer Activist Collective, or Q, and SHS to address concerns with improving gender-affirming healthcare at BU.
The meeting went on to discuss the “Uniting Justice” pillar, which seeks to amplify underrepresented voices with the aim of a more equitable student community. Farooqi said StuGov could begin by allocating some funding toward small local businesses, particularly those owned by women and people of color as those tend to be “the hardest hit” economically by the pandemic. “Every year, Student Government spends tens of thousands of dollars on all these different things, including merch and food,” Farooqi said. “Instead of spending those dollars on giant multinational corporations, we should spend our money on local businesses here in Boston.” Nyah Jordan, a senior in COM and student body president, said an important goal under the Uniting Community pillar was fostering community amid the transition back to an in-person campus, adding that events such as this year’s Wellness Challenge were structured around this goal. “[The Wellness Challenge] focused more on creating more initiatives and workspaces that did bring
BRIAN SONG | DAILY FREE PRESS STAFF
The Boston University Student Government Office. BU Student Government heard BUnited updates on addressing campus sexual assault resources, continuing community events and more in a meeting Monday night.
back the community that we had last year, or provide resources that may not be currently available to students,” she said. BUnited said they wish to continue fostering community by spon-
soring cultural meal events, peer advising and continuing to work with LGBTQ+ organizations on campus. The meeting ended with an unmoderated caucus. All other presentations and bills were postponed.