A NEW SCHEME has been initiated by the University Health Centre in response to continued criticism from the student body.
The new ‘Stay and Wait’ initiative hopes to tackle the issue of excessive waiting times for appointments, a problem which has been infuriating the University’s sick and suffering for years.
A 2010 YUSU Health Centre Report highlighted that 39% of students faced an appointment waiting time of five days or more, something which the Health Centre acknowledged as “inexcusable” and pledged to address.
The scheme allows students to visit the centre between the hours of 8.30am and 12 noon in the hope of seeing a health-care professional on the day, without prior appointment.
However, the fact that the scheme is “not for complex problems” – only those which need less than 10 minutes – means that it is unlikely to alleviate the frustrations of those students with more serious concerns.
Students have spoken to Vision about their continued problems, which highlight issues beyond appointment waiting times.
Unlike other universities including Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle, the University of York’s Health Centre is not specific to the University. Instead, it is one of three clinics run by six different GPs which take responsibility for the eastern part of the city.
This lack of a uni-specific health service has led to increased confusion, cost and inconvenience for students.
First-year Philosophy student Matt Graham, who suffered a severe gash to his right leg during a particularly vicious round of Vanbrugh pub golf, was stunned to discover that health-centre nurses could not redress his wound.
Having awoken in a pool of blood, Matt immediately went to A&E to receive 26 stitches. Doctors advised that the wound should be redressed every day to avoid the risk of infection.
“I assumed the simple procedure of changing a bandage could be carried out by any nurse, however reception promptly told me that I would have to go to an off campus clinic for this treatment.”
“I could not walk due to the injury, and because there is no bus, I ended up paying over £150 in taxi fares. Not ideal on a student budget as you can imagine.”
This perceived lack of sympathy of the Health Centre staff, highlighted in the 2011 YUSU Student Experience survey, seems to be a problem which pertains this year.
A first-year Vanbrugh student, who wishes to remain anonymous, told Vision of his difficulty in obtaining a vital prescription.
“As a narcoleptic, my Modafinil is crucial to my day-to-day function. All-in-all I had to wait three weeks to get my prescription […] I found it really hard to study and socialise. This had a massive impact on my first term.”
“What made it worse was the contempt of the doctor, who seemed reluctant to give me the prescription. At one stage I felt like he was accusing me of being a Modafinil dealer, despite my medical records of the last two years.”
First year Derwent student, Alicia Harrop, reports similar experiences of unsympathetic staff.
“I had a kidney infection which everyone, including NHS online, told me needed prompt treatment. I called up the health centre and they told me I had to wait two weeks for an appointment with a doctor.”
“I think in total I called up the health centre five times that day, sometimes even having to wait 10 minutes just to get through to reception, and eventually they agreed to see me sooner”.
“This poor organisation has definitely left a sour taste in my mouth and I now prefer to just wait to go to see the doctor at home.”
However, Louise Johnston, Practice Manager at Dr Price & Partners, has fought back, claiming that student no-shows “are having a negative impact on the appointment waiting-times”.
“A big problem for us are DNAs (Did Not Attend). Between 1st January 2012 and 29th February 2012 at the Health Centre alone, 218 appointments were missed – this equates to 18 doctor sessions.”
She also pointed to “poor student feedback” as a hindrance to the improvement and reform of the Health Centre.
4000 texts were apparently sent to University students this year, inviting them to “Have Your Say” at an organised meeting. There were only 29 responses and not a single student attended.
“We try to engage with students, but the response is always poor”.
The University also responded to the complaints. David Duncan, University Registrar, speaking to Vision said, “the Health Centre is part of the National Health Service (NHS), and is not managed by the University.”
“However, we are aware that the Health Centre under the management of Dr Letham is very keen to improve the service it offers to students.
“The University will do everything it can to support the Health Centre in this regard, especially in reducing waiting times.”
YUSU Welfare Officer Bob Hughes conceded that, “although the service has improved in the last couple of years, there’s still a lot that needs to be done”.
“There is another survey and consultation period about the Health Centre coming next term that I urge as many students to get involved with as possible.”
The stay-and-wait service isn’t new at all. They’ve had it since April 2011…
The centre have my number and I did not receive a text- I would merrily tell them how useless their system is. Things like kidney infections can put people in hospital if untreated, and how stupid do the ‘health professionals’ think we are that we don’t know anything about our own preexisting conditions!
It’s articles like these that only focus on the bad points about something without giving any of the good points. But of course, someone saying that they thought the health centre was okay wouldn’t have made a newsworthy quote.
While I recognise and understand that not everyone will be happy with the service provided, there are those out there who are happy. Me being one of them. I’ve used the stay and wait service several times now and even at its worst, with 6 people waiting in front of me I was still seen within 30 minutes. That’s shorter than some of the waits I’ve had when I’ve had a normal appointment at other surgeries. On top of that, the staff are friendly and helpful and do their best to fit stuff around you in terms of follow up appointments.
So yes, things may need improving but I think it should also be mentioned that it’s still a pretty damn good service.
Some good things:
-I found the reception staff and the doctor I saw to be polite and helpful.
-Receiving a text the day before the appointment is very useful.
A bad thing:
-Getting through to reception on the phone is surprisingly difficult. I’ve regularly had to wait for ages to get through. If there are not enough reception staff, employ. Can’t afford to employ more staff? Get the GPs to take a wage cut. Many of them are paid more than enough as it is.
I do think students who miss appointments have to accept some responsibility for essentially making others wait longer than necessary to see a doctor. Perhaps if we could eliminate/reduce the number of missed appointments, then the doctors would have time to provide a better service.
is there air con in the library? it’s tropical up here!
The next available appointment with my regular doctor was in a months time, seriously unappreciated. The health centre needs sorting out.
Already had a travel appointment (which I had to wait three weeks for), had a series of panic attacks and ended up in hospital and depressed without any medication, and they said they couldn’t see me until the holidays. I went in for my travel appointment and the surgery was empty so they’re not exactly rushed off their feet.
Well lets see, as an adult I expect to be able to discuss all options with my GP. Raising one option resulted in the GP laughing at my request for a certain drug before fobbing me off by telling me it wasn’t licensed for me. I knew this was wrong and rather addressing the problems just increased the dosage of a drug making no difference. I changed my GP to home who put me on the drug I had requested and it is amazing the difference it has made, the pointless drug that the health centre put me on I am off. The Uni doctors are useless, you get treated like a child, insulted and not dealt with properly. Stay and wait is just to try and make their waiting times look better on paper, you get put in these clinics by receptionist and then find your self after an hour sat with a nurse who can’t help you so you’ll have to get another appointment. The current service level is just playing with patients lives, its not good enough.
One time I started feeling ill, I went to my GP, and thought that it was a virus that was going around. His advice was no good at all, as he clung onto my previous theory. It was actually tonsilitis that developed into quinsy. I couldn’t eat, drink, talk, or sleep because I was in so much pain. Because I was losing sleep, revising for exams was difficult at best. It wasn’t until my parents visited and made the snap decision to take me home for the week that I got to see a GP who knew what was wrong. Because it was left for so long, I had to undergo an excruciating procedure involving a needle in my throat. And all of this within spitting distance of my exams.
tl;dr. Get your act together, York GPs!
The staff are patronising, judgemental and rude.I recently found out, from the Health Centre, that I have PCO and all the advice I was given was “don’t worry about it.” Given that this is a condition which can lead to serious illness and infertility, I did not feel this was particularly useful advice.
Similarly I saw a doctor at the centre about changing my contraceptive pill, because the one I was on was making me nauseous, she consulted my medical record and saw I’d had an abortion in 2009 and came out with a comment I felt was particularly judgemental: “The one thing we know about you is, you need good contraception.”
I’ve often found the medical staff at the centre to be unprofessional, rude and seemingly uncaring. This is not how people who are in charge of health care should behave. Particularly when dealing with young students, who may not have had to organise their own health-care before. Personally I think more attention needs to be given to sorting out the attitudes of the staff.
I only went in about my dodgy knee and came out under the impression that my youngest daughter can talk to animals…