The Griffon News

The mission of the Esry Health Center at Western is to maintain the well-being and the physical/emotional health of students.

With the enforcing of immunization records, the majority of students seen in the heath center are underclassmen.

On top of immunizations, students come to the health center for other reasons relating to tiredness, stress, flu, colds, sore throats, prescriptions, sexuality questions and STD’s.

Even though the health center provides numerous services including allergy injections, blood pressure checks, contraceptives, laboratory services, medications, strep testing, urinalysis and diagnosis and treatment of illness and injuries.

“This is the first time in a while that we’ve had consistent services offered,” said Paul Shang, dean of student development. “And we have a family practice nurse who is here every day available to see students from 1-4:00 p.m. five days a week.”

One goal for the health center is to provide more services for women’s health in regard to more STD services.

The Health Center is also planning to upgrade the office to create a better environment.

“Were going to be probably changing the office around so that it’s more accessible and provides better services; better environment for all the students who come in,” Shang said.

Administrative Assistant, Angie Beck agrees that the health center should be updated with new services.

“Were looking into HPV immunizations, we’re just trying to totally upgrade the whole office from services to looks,” Beck said. “We want everybody to feel free to come here.”

Another possibility has been discussed on having the service charge included in the student’s tuition instead of having to pay every visit.

Beck has mentioned that she has research trying to see if the students would be interesting in having a student health fee.

“I’m trying to see how much it would have to be to cover expenses and things here; that’s the reason it’s a fee for service at the moment,” Beck said.

Junior, Katy Schwartz who works in the health center said that a student heath fee would be appropriate for services.

“I would strongly support a student health fee because I think it would provide much better services for every student on campus,” Schwartz said. “We have the ability to bring in specialists.”

Tammy McGuire, family nurse practitioner also thinks that the student health fee would be beneficial.

“If the health fee were to come about it would be a benefit to students, I also think the students would use the services more,” McGuire said.

The health center is doing a survey on what students want to see the health center doing for them.

Other new services discussed for the future is blood typing.

“We have found a way of doing that with just a single finger stick, it would tell blood type A,B,AB,O and it will also determine if they are RH negative or positive,” McGuire said. “We would then provide a small card that would have their name/birthdates and all the other information on it that could be carried in a wallet or purse. I think that would be something of a benefit in case anybody was ever injured in a car accident, a sports injury or whatever.”

Schwartz mentioned that she had tonsilitis six times and it was convenient for her to come to the health center in between classes to have the nurse practitioner look at her throat to tell if her tonsils were swollen again.

“I think the health center is a great service for all students,” Schwartz said.

The health center might add another nurse practitioner, but at this time it’s not possible.