Health Services left no forwarding address
Picture this: a young man, a soccer player, fresh from a game, dripping with sweat and blood, stumbles awkwardly to the door of the old Student Health and Counseling Services building. He pulls on the door handle, but the door remains stubbornly closed. Thinking that his severe blow to the head may be interfering with his vision, he tries again, but to no avail! Because his head injury has caused him a severe concussion (although he doesn’t know it yet because he has not seen a doctor at Health Services), plus a stunning loss of blood, he passes out right in front of the old Health Services building. Poor kid – he was already confused enough with his brain trauma. Why did Health Services have to make it worse?
The fact is, Health Services moved to Forsyth House on the South 40 at the tail end of winter break. Although Student Life covered the impending move last semester and Health Services sent out an e-mail beforehand detailing the move, students, faculty members and parents remain confused about Health Services’ current location. Perhaps a school-wide e-mail alerting everyone of the change again AFTER the move took place would have been helpful. The chancellor finds it necessary to send out a detailed e-mail not only to every student, but also to all of their parents about the dangers of alcohol and how many people have fallen out of windows this year – yet many students are still unaware of where to take those who fall out of windows after they hit the ground. Further confusion results from the lack of clear signage at both the old Health Services location and the new location. The Health Services Web site alerts patrons of the move, but if someone were to take ill and be inconveniently distant from electronic help, how would that person know where to go?
Student Life recently received e-mail from a Washington University graduate student who spoke of an incident this semester in which his family member needed to get in contact with Health Services on campus and experienced a number of difficulties. This family member went to the old Health Services location, and was then directed to a mysterious place called the “South 40.” This individual then made his way to the South 40, but was unable to find the Health Services location because the building has no sign! Here the problem compounds: the family member in question had arranged to meet the rest of the family at Health Services – but which Health Services? The rest of the family then went through the same rigmarole the first family member had been subjected to – and numerous queries to passersby about the location of Health Services were answered with directions to the old location! Clearly the campus community isn’t adequately informed about Health Services’ relocation.
A number of problems arise when the campus community isn’t adequately informed about the location of its health care facilities. It was bad enough that Health Services closed its night infirmary last semester – but now the University has intensified the problem by making campus health care difficult to find at any time of day. The bottom line is this: we’re unhappy with the lack of clear warning and advertising about the fact that Health Services was making the big move, but it’s not too late for the University to produce better signage and make sure people are informed about the building’s location.
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