The Health Center is requesting the same amount of funds from SFAC this year that it received last year. | File Photo/The Cougar
UH Wellness and the Health Center were the latest to petition to retain access to student fees in the first round of the Student Fees Advisory Committee hearings today.
Patrick Lukingbeal and Reuben Parrish, UH Wellness director and program coordinator, respectively, requested $287,858 — the same amount that they received last year — with plans to expand staff, space and visibility.
UH Wellness’s staff was slashed this year, from three full-time workers to one. The center’s location in the corner of the Campus Recreation and Wellness Center has led to students who don’t know exactly what UH Wellness is, or where they can find it.
“We are going to be working toward a greater understanding … (of) who we are as an office and what we do,” Lukingbeal said.
With such little staff, UH Wellness has been working to reach out to students beyond their office, working with “special populations” such as LGBT and veteran students, and submitting a UH entry in the federal National College Health Assessment for the first time.
Lindsay Barber, associate director of the Health Center, boasted new electronic medical records, touch-screen check-ins, and OpenCommunicator, a website that allows students to schedule appointments, talk to nurses and physicians and receive lab results and immunization records.
OpenCommunicator, which Barber called her “baby,” opens next week.
The Health Center is also requesting the same funds they received last year, just over $1.7 million.
The Affordable Health Care Act will have a “big impact with what we do at the Health Center,” Barber said. Although the Health Center currently only accepts payment through UH health insurance or out of pocket, the Center hopes they can receive private and family health care plans soon, in part due to the ACA.
“With that, we believe we will be seeing (a higher volume of students),” Barber said.
This higher volume means the Health Center wants more space in the year to come, and a back-up space in case the old building the current Center is housed in requires repairs.
Associate Vice President for Student Affairs Floyd Robinson rounded off the presentation saying that, though the chances of a student contracting Ebola are rare, the scare has the University preparing precautions and reassuring students, faculty, staff and parents. With the upcoming flu season, Robinson said that the Health Center is gearing to receive students who are afraid they may have contacted Ebola, due to the similarities in symptoms between the two.
