SA poll shows Health Services has limited reach

By Melissa Tsang     12/4/08 6:00pm

When they are feeling under the weather, 42 percent of Rice students said they would contact their parents prior to seeking treatment from health services or using online resources like WebMD, according to the Student Health Services survey conducted by the Student Association last month. SA Senators Ryan Fleming and Leticia Camara collaborated on the poll in order to address concerns about student awareness and utilization of Rice's Student Health Services, and to identify areas of possible improvement.

"We got together with the people from Health Services to figure out how they could improve their service toward students, especially with the student population increasing with Duncan and McMurtrey [Colleges]," Fleming, a Sid Richardson College sophomore, said. "This was a way for us to tell what issues students might have with Health Services, to see what student opinion is, to find out what services were being under-utilized, and what students were doing in order to treat themselves whenever they got sick."

Although moving Health Services off campus and outsourcing services would be cheaper for the university, poll results showed that 71 percent of students said they would not go to Health Services if it were located off campus, Camara, a Jones College sophomore, said.

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The poll also covered the time it took for students to schedule an appointment. Next-day or same-day appointments were the norm for 38 percent of poll respondents, while 16 percent scheduled an appointment two days later. Camara said calling too late to schedule an appointment and missed appointments when students do not cancel or forget to go remain two of the biggest problems with scheduling appointments.

"Early calling and remember[ing] to cancel," Camara said. "Those are the two things the student population really needs to remember to do. If we get that done, I'd be happy. I would really be happy."

Of the students surveyed, 36 percent said they have never made an appointment with Health Services.

"I don't use them that often because I never really had the need to," Jones sophomore Chase LeCroy said. "But if I had the need to, I'd feel like they're pretty open for me to go use and pretty accessible."

Of those who did use student health services, 56 percent of respondents reported that scheduling appointments was convenient or very convenient.

"I haven't used it that much, only once during O-Week when I got really bad bug bites," Hanszen College sophomore Courtney Ng said. "I think they're really attentive and very helpful because I didn't even have an appointment, I just walked in and they took care of me right there."

While sick visits and vaccinations top the list for services most used by students, the number of visits to Student Health Services for contraceptive counseling and testing for sexually transmitted diseases were 18 percent and 14 percent, respectively. Fleming said one of the reasons for the poll was to increase awareness of the different STD tests Health Services offers.

Camara said the SA will work with Student Health Services and especially the residential colleges' Health Representatives to encourage students to use Health Services more often.

"What we really want to change is the outbreak awareness on campus," Camara said. "So basically if there's a mono outbreak on campus, students know really quickly the basic steps of how to avoid getting mono."

The poll was posted on the SA website Nov. 17 and ended Nov. 26, and with 450 student votes, participation exceeded initial expectations of 200 to 300 votes and surpassed the 348 votes counted during the SA's poll on Fondren Library services in March.

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