In a survey conducted by The Catalyst, 60 percent of Colorado College students felt that Boettcher Health Center has not provided adequate healthcare, while 48 percent of students found that the Counseling Center has not met their mental health needs. 52 percent of students surveyed felt that Boettcher Health Center and Counseling Center do not meet their needs. CC health services and care on campus include Boettcher Health Center, the Counseling Center, the Wellness Resource Center, and the Sexual Assault Response Coordinator (SARC).
Boettcher Health Center is the most visible part of the healthcare provided on campus, which provides acute health care services to students. On the other hand, the Wellness Resource Center, the Counseling Center, and SARC focus on prevention and outreach. All four of these centers and services intersect and work with one another to foster a healthy community.
The Wellness Resource Center, Counseling Center, and SARC are all in-house services provided by the college. The Boettcher Health Center services are contracted to Colorado Springs Health Partners (CSHP). Boettcher Health Center was an in house operation until 2011. The school attributes the change from in-house to contract operations to the creation of the Wellness Resource Center. This change also allowed for the reallocation of funds to the Counseling Center.
Since the change in service providers, there has been building frustration among the student body toward Boettcher Health Center.
“There seems to be a disconnect between a lot of the initiatives that the college is promoting and what Boettcher is doing especially in regards to race, sexuality, gender, etc,” said Senior Eboni Statham. “I’ve talked to many female and queer students who have had awful experiences and I have as well. There also seems to be a huge issue with misdiagnosis that really ends up ultimately freaking people out and causing more anxiety than necessary.”
Last year the student health center saw 1,717 distinct individual students, with 2,930 patient visits. Another 332 CC students visited the Colorado Springs Health Partners (CSHP) Urgent Care Clinic.
The 1,717 individual students seen was well above the four-year average, which is approximately 1,500. This report reveals that over 80 percent of the students at CC have visited the health center within the last year.
The prevailing student narrative is negative surrounding the healthcare provided on campus. Students’ narratives include stories of misdiagnosis, frustration with wait times, and incidents with counselors and nurse practitioners. From the data gathered in the recent survey, the student body was not as overwhelmingly disappointed as some would believe.
“When people have a negative experience, that tends to be the thing people talk about,” said Heather Horton, Director of the Wellness Resource Center. “So sometimes when we do surveys of student satisfaction at the health center, actually students are pretty satisfied with the services, but the narrative that is out there for students is often negative. So, figuring out how do we respond to negative experiences that students have because we don’t want them to have negative experiences in their healthcare. Also, how do we help students understand how healthcare systems work and what you can expect from providers when you go in.”
“Obviously you don’t hear the good experiences, so it definitely becomes biased, but I have heard a lot of stories,” said junior Leah Ciffolillo. “Someone was bit by a brown recluse and was told it was just a bug bite and was told to just ‘wait it out,’ another person was given a false positive TB test. I think the overall perception in the student body is that it’s not great health service. That being said, I have had good experiences there and had helpful doctors. It may not be the best healthcare, but I’ve sat down with a woman there and googled my symptoms and tried to figure out what’s going on. It’s really person to person—the level of patient care students receive.”
CC is accredited by the American College Health Association. There is no requirement or law for colleges to provide on-campus healthcare or services. Colleges that are a part of the American College Health Association are required to meet certain guidelines that maintain a healthy campus community.
Horton believes the school is responsible for providing a way for students to learn how to engage in a healthcare system. “I also think that as an institution who has contracted with these folks [CSHP] to provide services on our campus, that we have a responsibility to be tuned in and listening to student feedback, so that we can ensure that the services provided are consistent with not only what students needs are, but also with the values and ways of operating that we have as an institution,” said Horton.
John Lauer, Associate Vice President for Student Life, supervises Bill Dove and Heather Horton, and manages the contract agreement for CSHP. “Healthcare is not a part of the college’s mission, so we want to be able to ensure that students have access to appropriate healthcare and then we want to able to exceed that,” said Lauer. “I think we, as a college, given our placement as an urban college, and next to two distinguished hospitals, we probably don’t need to do anything on the healthcare provision side of things to meet our obligation. We are able to respond to students in crisis, through our counseling center and SARC, Maria. I think it’s a privilege, but an important privilege, the ability to provide an acute urgent care facility on campus.”
Through the conducted survey, many students reported being tested for STDs at Boettcher Health Center. “I also felt very slut-shamed while being tested because I got tested more than once a year, which is something I feel like that is my responsibility to do and my diagnosis report told me that I should have sex in a monogamous relationship which is extremely inappropriate,” said Statham regarding her STD tests at Boettcher.
Statham continued, “For STD testing and other gynecology needs, I used to go to Planned Parenthood because I thought the people there were awesome and really positive and created a comfortable environment. Due to past incidents, I’m now a bit nervous to go there, which is unfortunate.”
Other students reported similar stories when they went to Boettcher Health Center to get an STD test. Following the Planned Parenthood shooting last fall, students such as Statham are searching for a safe place to check their reproductive health. In addition to STD testing, mental health services factor heavily into student health on campus.
“In terms of the data we have collected from our students and our more anecdotal information from students, mental health challenges are definitely one of the things they would identify as priorities and one of the things we would identify as priorities too, since we know that would impact someone’s well-being and safety,” said Horton. “It also impacts their ability to engage in an educational experience and we want students to be able to do that to the highest degree possible.”
The Counseling Center currently employs an LGBTQ specialist, an eating disorder specialist, an alcohol and drugs specialist, and just hired an African-American therapist, who is a specialist on African-American males. Two years ago, the Counseling Center increased their therapists by 30 percent.
A junior who declined to provide their name in the campus-wide Catalyst survey, said, “I have been disappointed by the lack of mental health services provided by Boettcher. CC has a very expansive mental health crisis on its campus that only gets talked about in an alarmingly surface-level, superficial manner. Mental health is a vital part of a student’s life and they should be given the appropriate resources with which to aid healthy mental and emotional development alongside being a full-time college student, which is already stressful enough. Every time I have wanted to see a counselor I have to wait about a week and a half or up to two weeks. This is really upsetting because it sends a message that mental health should rank lower on a student’s list of priorities when in actuality it should always come first.”
The Junior not only identified issues with the current mental health services, but provided some possible solutions. “Something that could help is hiring more counselors and making this the administration’s priority, as it would strengthen students’ abilities to be students and contribute to the overall health well-being and vibrancy of the Colorado College community. Not only hiring more counselors, but hiring more diverse counselors as in therapists that are POC, women, WOC, queer, etc. all that have been trained in trauma informed care. Please.”
“The greatest challenge for the counseling center is to provide adequate accessibility for the student demand, which has gone up,” said Bill Dove, Director of the Counseling Center. “It has doubled in the last five years. Trying to keep up with the demand is definitely a challenge. We have a greater availability, but we also have a higher demand than most schools.”
CC’s Counseling Center enables a student to have six free sessions. The Center has four full-time counselors and four people who come in one day a week.
Dove confirms that the Counseling Center tries to get students seen within a few days and at most within a week. However, if a student asks for a specific counselor, there might be longer wait times.
“On a college campus, mental health is number one,” said Ciffolillo. “I think that the Counseling Center could have more availability. I know that students have struggled to be seen and there are two to three counselors that have good reputations and then a lot of counselors who don’t. Students seem to be competing for the same people. For someone who needs that kind of help, they shouldn’t be working so hard to get it because it’s already a difficult thing for people to admit they need. I had a really bad experience with a counselor there and he is always available. I don’t want to go back to him, so then the wait time is two to three weeks out.”
Students are welcome to email or drop in to see Heather Horton or Kenzie Mulligan-Buckmiller at the Wellness Resource Center to voice concerns and seek help. There will also be a newly instated Student Health Advisory Council (names of the members will be published early in the semester) to whom students could also share concerns. Additionally, CSHP has a patient advocate that students can contact.