Along with services, low-cost pharmaceutical items, immunizations and
complex laboratory testing are also covered at the Health Center. The
center is the most heavily utilized student service.
Matt Weir / Collegian File Photo
While it seems like every month brings news of tuition or student loan interest rate increases, the Health Center has not had a substantial increase since 2005. As a result, the Health Center has suffered state budget cutbacks, had to cut its staff from 45 down to 35 and ultimately cut back on services offered to students.
“We’ve lost the ability to be more accessible,” said Health Center director Cathy Felix. “Visibility is another problem, getting students to realize we are here, there’s not enough staff to do the marketing.”
Less than 50 percent of students use the Health Center even though they pay the mandatory fee as part of their tuition. From 2010 to 2011, total visits dropped by 3,500 due to cutbacks and lack of visibility.
“Since we’ve dropped off the number of staff, we don’t have enough open appointments for students,” said Yasmine Mohsin, president of the Student Health Advisory Committee (SHAC). “Students choose to walk because there may be longer waits or they may be asked to come back the next day.”
SHAC is the student organization mandated by the university to work with Felix and the Health Center to find out what students need from the facility and also to inform students of the many free and low-cost services it offers.
Felix, who just took over as director last October, wants to reverse the trend and help all Fresno State students use the services they have to pay for anyway. She has proposed raising the fee by $5 per year for the next four years starting this fall. The University Fee Advisory Committee has given Felix until Friday, May 4 to make three types of outreach to students in order to get their sentiment on her proposed fee increase.
An email was sent out to all students last Tuesday asking them to go online and complete a brief two-minute survey. The Fee Advisory Committee mandated that Felix get at least 500 responses from her survey, and already more than 500 have filled it out.
While there is still a week to go in the process, about 60 percent of students are in favor of the increase.
However, some students feel the fee increase is unnecessary because not every student wants to use the Health Center.
Student activist Neil O’Brien addressed the Associated Students, Inc. Senate at Wednesday’s meeting urging them to vote “no confidence” to a Health Center fee increase. Although ASI did not have an action item on the agenda to vote for the approval of a fee increase, O’Brien said the increase is excessive.
“A $5 increase per year [with] over 20,000 students equates to $100,000,” O’Brien said. “For five years, that’s a half of a million dollars ”” that’s not asking for our help, that’s asking for students to cover the entire ground.”
O’Brien said that people come to a university to get an education, and the Health Center is an added benefit.
Felix also had to speak with at least six student organizations and get their feelings on the increase and is in the process of holding four open forums around campus.
A forum will be held on Monday in the Madden Library Room. 3212 at 3 p.m. and also Thursday, May 3 at 6 p.m. at the Residence Hall Atrium.
Felix and Mohsin will present their findings mid-May to the Fee Advisory Committee and the committee will then deliberate and make a recommendation to President John Welty who will make the final decision before the semester.
Felix has a grand vision for the Health Center if it can get the increased funds.
“It will allow us to initiate enhanced services, 24/7 availability of information to students, 24/7 advisers [and] less waiting time,” Felix said.
She also wants to enhance the center’s free psychological services by creating mini-counseling centers around campus so students can more easily and anonymously use them.
“It would be a health center without walls, where psych centers would be mixed in with the rest of the campus,” Felix said. “Where we would have small offices in areas where there are trouble spots.”
“You don’t know how nice it is until you need to use it,” said Mohsin. “I never knew how valuable it really was, since I was never sick, until last semester I was in a car accident and this was my only place to go and now I’m in physical therapy and I’m not paying anything at all.”
