You’re coughing, you’re cold, and the person next to you just threw up in the communal garbage can. The doctor can’t see you for two more hours.
This familiar scene is what officials hope will soon subside after Campus Care’s $600,000 renovation project is completed at the end of this calendar year.
Despite several months of delays, the on-campus health care facility, formerly known as Hudson Health Center, should be completely revamped by the time students return to Ohio University in the winter, said Tonya Burdette, Campus Care’s director of operations.
The renovations were funded through a joint contribution of $600,000 from the Office of Student Affairs and the Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine. They were originally slated to take place this summer, but delays in funding and the relocation of OU’s Risk Management and Safety Office set the plans behind several months.
The office’s relocation cost an additional $350,000 and involved the complete reconstruction of a laboratory in the office’s new University Service Center location by the Lausche Heating Plant, said Harry Wyatt, associate vice president for Facilities.
Another recent change to the building was the construction of a handicap-accessible ramp in the front of the building, which was completed during the summer.
“It’s always hard to work around an existing operation, but it takes good collaboration between the contractor, project manager and the entity running the operation,” Wyatt said. “It’s going on remarkably.”
When the renovations are complete — preferably before the calendar year ends, Burdette said — Campus Care will fully utilize both floors of its facility. Right now, the health center uses only the first floor, along with a laboratory and physical-therapy facility in the basement. The second floor formerly housed the Risk Management and Safety Office.
Before University Medical Associates took over the operations of the newly named Campus Care in August 2010, wait times sometimes averaged more than three hours, Burdette said. By Winter Quarter 2011, wait times were down to an average of one hour and 20 minutes.
Now that the renovations are limiting the building’s space and appointments are temporarily unavailable, the average wait time has risen to two hours and 17 minutes, but Burdette said that, once the renovations are complete, she hopes to see the average reduced to 45 minutes.
“We take no pride in the fact that students are being inconvenienced (during the renovations),” said Steve Davies, chief executive officer for University Medical Associates.
The new Campus Care facility will offer urgent-care facilities on the first floor, and the second floor will serve students with appointments. With increased space and staffing, Campus Care will be able to provide more specific types of care to students, especially those needing routine procedures such as allergy shots.
“Why should you have to wait until you come home to see a primary-care provider?” Burdette said.
The facility has 11 exam rooms now; after the renovations are complete, there will be 22.
Campus Care employees will also restructure students’ entrance procedures to minimize the time they spend in a waiting room, Burdette said.
A greeter will direct students when they first walk in, and the facility also will have soundproof barriers to offer more privacy to students checking in. There will be a separate waiting room for those who might be contagious.
Campus Care’s pharmacy will have more space and offer more retail drugs, and there will be another men’s restroom.
In the meantime, students cite varying experiences at Campus Care. Some said they have been urged away from the health center by word of mouth.
“My roommate got sick and went to the health center. She waited for an hour and a half. Then they just repeated her exact symptoms that she had already told them,” said Tara Nolan, a freshman studying commercial photography. “They made her wait for over an hour again and then only gave her cough syrup. Now I know not to go there.”
However, other students complained only about the center’s wait times.
“My Campus Care experience was okay,” said Kimberly Uscilowski, a graduate student studying physical therapy. “I just had a very long wait.”
Although delays in the construction plans extended the renovations into Fall Quarter, officials said the end result will be worth the wait.
“We will make this a better place to come,” Davies said. “We just have to get through this quarter.”
— Brandon Carte contributed to this article.
rm279109@ohiou.edu
