Students unhappy with service
What Derek Ness remembers most about his experience with UNB Student Health is how hard it was to be seen by a doctor.
A visually impaired, second-year student at UNB, he’s visited the health centre twice this year.
His first visit on Oct. 27 involved a problem with his glaucoma implant, a tube that regulates the fluid pressure inside his eye.
While writing a midterm, he noticed the implant seemed to be bulging out.
Concerned, he finished his midterm and went to student health.
He arrived at the centre at 2:30 p.m. and was told there were no more appointments available for the day.
“The first suggestion offered to me was to return the next morning to book an appointment,” Ness said.
When he explained that a problem with the implant could cause him to lose vision in his good eye, he was told to go to the ER.
While most students using student health services at UNB probably don’t have to worry about losing their vision, Ness isn’t the only one who dislikes the appointment booking system.
A Facebook group, UNB/STU Student Health Must Change, launched on Feb. 18 with the goal of bringing awareness to the issues students have with the system.
The group attracted 600 people in six days and has become a place for students to vent and discuss ideas for a new system that would meet the needs of students better.
Much of group administrator Michelle Alexiu’s knowledge about the system comes from personal experience.
The current system makes showing up early and waiting the only way to be seen. Appointments are filled on a first-come, first-serve basis, meaning students can’t call in appointments or book in advance.
The second-year law student, who called herself a “frequent customer” during her first year at UNB, said her class schedule made it impossible to be at the centre at 8:30 a.m. to book an appointment.
“I was chronically ill,” she said. “But in my first semester last year, I had classes from 8:30 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. four days a week, so I couldn’t make appointments those four days. Then on Fridays, I had class until 9:30 a.m.”
For her, this meant asking a friend to take notes for her on Friday.
But while it was inconvenience, it wasn’t until a friend came to vent about the system that Alexiu decided to take action and create the Facebook group.
The group outlines the current system, pointing out problems students have with same-day booking. From there, it makes suggestions for improvements based on a model used by another university with 35,000 students.
The proposed changes include using a computerized booking system and creating appointment slots each day for emergencies. Alexiu said negotiations with health centre administration will begin once the group reaches 1,000 members.
Student Health Director JoAnn Majerovich said she knows about the group and that the centre is open to student feedback about the services.
“The university and the Student Health Centre are very open to working with students,” she said, adding that a proposal has been made to the UNB Student Union for a joint Health and Counselling Student Advisory Working Group. “I hope this would make it easier for students to have their voices heard and affect change.”
While the group argues same-day scheduling doesn’t meet student need, Majerovich said the model was chosen based on resources available and research into scheduling systems used by other health centres.
Before same-day scheduling, the wait time for appointments was five weeks.
“We felt students needed quicker access to health care than this, more traditional, system provided,” Majerovich said. “Health care systems in all countries work within the limits of available resources…We tried to choose a system that serves the students better, that makes the most effective and efficient use of the resources we have, and is evidence based.”
The health centre offers services to all full-time students enrolled at UNB and STU.
Full-time UNB students pay for the services through a student health fee, a last-minute addition to UNB’s budget last fiscal year. Currently, STU students don’t pay a fee for the services.
Alexiu said she doesn’t mind paying for access to the services if they’re meeting the needs of the students.
“I personally know that when you’re sick, you don’t see 8:30 in the morning,” she said. “If you’re really sick, you don’t wake up in the morning. [The current system] is just really inconvenient, but in inconvenient on a level that is really drastic.”
“An inconvenience is one thing, but really not meeting the needs of students is completely different.”
There’s still a lot of work to be done before any change can happen, but Alexiu said she thinks change will come quickly once negotiations begin. She hopes a new system will be in place by September.
“Right now, not everybody uses student health because they’re so disgruntled,” she said. “Hopefully when the system changes, people that really want to use the student health services will go there. They might have to hire a few more staff members to service the students that are paying for the services and should be able to use the services.”
