The Cadre *

By RANDY MCDONALD

Students seeking health care for the first time this year at the Health Centre in the basement of Marian Hall will find that the Health Centre has changed significantly.

Perhaps the biggest changes is the marked reduc- tion in the hours that the Health Centre is open—from 35 hours a week to 20 hours a week — and the fact that many people associated at UPEI, from chil- dren in the nearby daycare centre to students and profes- sors who already have general practitioners, aren’t being treated anymore’by the Health Centre for all but the most urgent cases.

For the 1998-99 school year, the UPEI Health Centre will be run by the School of Nursing, not by Student De- velopment, as was the case in previous school years.

24 November 1998

Staff at the Health Cen- tre has been cut down to three individuals: A doctor, anurse, and a secretary.

Thus, once funded to be open full-time five days a week from September to April for 35 hours a week, funding to the Health Centre will now be only enough to keep it open on a part-time basis for half that time.

When asked to explain the reasons for the cutbacks, VP Crossley commented that the Health Centre, as it was run in previous school years, was too expensive, costing, at 65 thousand dollars, 1% of stu- dent’s tuition.

Administration initially considered hiring a third party to run the Health Centre on- campus.

As Crossley explained it, at the time administration thought that “We should be able to find someone who could

run a Health Centre on cam- pus without subsidies.” Administration asked Island doctors and pharma- cists to put together a pro- posal for establishing a prac- tice at the UPEI Health Cen- tre. They claimed to encoun-

The Health Centre...[is] too expensive, costing at $65,000, 1% of student's tuition

ter several problems, the most serious of which was the rela- tively small use of the UPEI Health Centre’s services. Including visits by stu- dents and UPEI workers who already had doctors else- where on PEI, and the immu- nizations provided to students in the School of Nursing and the Atlantic Veterinary Col- lege, there was only five thou- sand visits made by students last year, of which only half

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More cut to the UPE! Health Centre

_UPEI News 2

UPEI Health Centre in Jeopardy

more cuts to be made to the Health Centre's budget

were billable.

This number was only half of the minimum of ten thousand visits annually esti- mated to be required for a financially viable medical prac- tice for a single physician at the UPEI Health Centre.

Another option consid- ered by adminstration was the establishment ofa UPEI-based clinic that would be available to the wider Charlottetown community, but that would re- serve services for UPEI stu- dents. Again, itwas concluded that there would not be enough business to keep such a clinic open for even five daysa week.

The abolition of the Health Centre was also seri- ously considered. “It’s not as ifwe’re living in a Third World country where no health care is available.”

Eventually, it was de- cided to cut back funding to the Health Centre, and to make ita“ 100% student service” by limiting its services to UPEI

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students.

It was decreed that lower levels of service could be justified, on the grounds that the Health Centre han- died only twoemergencies last year, it didn’t need to be open after-hours, and nearly all of the students at UPEI were relatively young.

As a result, the subsi- dies were cut back from 65,000 dollars to 40, 000 dollars, and three doctors were recruited for a half-day each. For the rest of the time, a nurse would be available to assist students with minor health problems.

When asked about whether the reduction in fund- ing and services would dis- courage students from going to the Health centre, Crossley suggested that keeping non- students from using the Health Centre would actually increase the availability of the Health Centre to UPEI students.

Regardless, “We're go- ing to monitor the situation.”

-photo by Richard Haines