Archived Edition: January 27, 2004 | Back to Current	Jul 31, 2010

Overnight Health Center access to be restricted
Bart Clareman - FORMER EDITOR

In a move that looms as a potential harbinger of the changes in alcohol policy and culture that can be expected in the coming months, an all-campus e-mail released last night by Dean Roseman alerted students that they will no longer be able to gain unrestricted 24-hour access to the campus’ Health Center, a change effective at the outset of the 2004-05 academic year. Roseman’s e-mail stressed that the change in policy was not initiated by the College, but rather by the medical body responsible for providing primary after-hours care at the Health Center, Williamstown Medical Associates (WMA).

Ruth Harrison, director of health services, called WMA’s decision a product of the “litigious society we live in,” a sentiment echoed in Roseman’s e-mail: “WMA has informed the College that they are unwilling to continue to provide coverage overnight due to liability issues.”

Roseman went on to note that other colleges, Wesleyan for example, have had to revoke overnight access to their health centers due to liability concerns as well. The College hopes to have the Health Center remain open until 8 or 9 p.m. on weekdays, while a target for weekend hours is yet to have been announced.

In an interview yesterday, Roseman maintained that the College was committed whole-heartedly to the health and well-being of the student body, and posited that the closing of the Health Center at night did not necessarily run counter to this end.

“The care you receive at the Health Center is limited. That has always been true,” Roseman said. “It is not a medical facility. It doesn’t have the equipment to monitor people constantly…Students who need real medical attention should go to the hospital, so maybe in some ways it’s better that that’s where they will be taken now.”

But when it was suggested that the closing of the Health Center was a negative development for the students of Williams College, especially those who engage in irresponsible levels of alcohol consumption, Roseman conceded the point, with qualifications.

“I can’t really argue with that,” Roseman said. “Would I rather provide a service? Yeah, of course. The only question in my mind is, are we somehow, even subtly, giving students permission to drink dangerously by providing 24-hour service at the Health Center? Who knows, who knows if that’s true?”

Roseman went on to say that she did not think there was any amount of money that could keep the Health Center functioning in its current capacity, and that the issue was ultimately more complicated than dollars and cents.

“It’s not just about money, it’s about your medical license,” she said. “The physicians are placing their medical licenses at risk, and I don’t think there’s any amount of money we could use to buy Williamstown Medical an umbrella insurance policy.”

While the Health Center provides a varied catalogue of health services to students in need, the change in hours will immediately affect those students who are taken to the Health Center due to complications arising from excessive drinking.

While Harrison noted that the amount of students admitted on a given weekend night for this reason fluctuates greatly from weekend to weekend, she figured that on average the Health Center, which has five beds available for student use, admits three students a night between Thursday and Saturday. Harrison noted that certain weekends are more problematic than others, however, and that averages reflect the fact that on some weekend nights only one student will be taken to the Health Center, while on others the number may approach eight or nine.

In lieu of the Health Center, students who consume an excessive amount of alcohol and require care will now be directed immediately to North Adams Regional Hospital (NARH). Because Security personnel do not have the medical training that would permit them to escort students to the hospital in emergency situations, students would continue to be transported to NARH by Village Ambulance next year.

John Murphy, assistant manager of Village Ambulance, which operates out of Water Street and responds to emergency 9-1-1 calls from residents of Williamstown, New Ashford and Hancock, estimated that his fleet of three ambulances would be able to respond to calls from any site on campus within three minutes. Murphy also estimated that it would take an ambulance between 15 and 20 minutes to reach NARH from the College.

Because the responsibility of finding medical attention for an intoxicated student often falls on his or her peers, Junior Advisors (JAs) are concerned that the change in policy will present new and unwieldy challenges in their dealings with first-year students, the group of students who are taken to the Health Center most frequently.

“Obviously JAs are responsible people and would always err on the side of caution, but I do think that this move puts a lot of added pressure on their shoulders,” said David Seligman ’05, a JA in Williams D. “What’s worse is that I worry that freshmen may be a lot less likely to comply with a JA who tells them they should go to the hospital than they would be with a JA who tells them they should go to the Health Center.

“I worry that we’ll be battling with freshmen and their friends who won’t be supportive of our decisions, all of which I believe will complicate an already difficult process.”

Also concerned about the effects of the policy shift is Meg Bossong ’05, secretary of the Rape and Sexual Assault Network (RASAN). Bossong said closing the Health Center overnight would complicate the process of getting emergency contraceptives. She was also worried about issues of confidentiality in the event of a sexual assault now that students would have to report to either Security or NARH.

Bossong was confident, however, that the Dean’s Office would appropriately respond to the concerns of RASAN. “The Dean’s Office is usually very responsive to this kind of thing,” she said.

Meanwhile, College Council (CC) co-president Mike Henry ’04 said he found the policy shift “disappointing on a personal level, and I think it’s something all of us at CC find very unfortunate.” Henry said that CC would wait and gauge student reaction to the change before acting, but noted that CC was “willing to fight for this if students are appalled.”

Roseman said she was sensitive to the fact that the shift in policy presented a broad new set of challenges to students, particularly those in positions of authority.

Though she insisted that students who require serious medical attention would be better served by a trip to NARH than by a trip to the Health Center, Roseman conceded that she was as unsure as anyone as to what the future would hold without a Health Center at Williams.

“I don’t know how this is going to play out,” she said. “I don’t have a crystal ball; I don’t know how students are going to respond; I don’t know how JAs are going to respond; all we can do on the administrative side is talk to people and educate them and talk it through and just respond to this as a group.

“Students are scared because their safety net, their perceived safety net – and I say ‘perceived’ because I don’t think the net is as good as they think it is – is being taken away,” she said. “That’s scary. It’s scary for me; I’m not taking any pleasure in this.”

Although overnight access to the Health Center is identified closely with binge drinking, all parties contacted for this story were quick to point out that the Health Center provides other critical services to students at night that would not necessarily be compromised.

To that end, Roseman said that the College is looking to ensure that WMA might continue to provide a 24-hour on-call system. Such a system would allow students who are afflicted with disease or are suffering from the effects of other such non-self-inflicted medical problems would be able to gain access to a physician at the Health Center at any hour.

“We’re hoping they will provide us with some kind of on-call system at night,” Roseman said, adding that Harrison has been optimistic about the prospects for the implementation of such a system. “I hope they’ll provide some flexibility so that we’ll be able to keep one bed for non-emergency respite.”

WMA did not return repeated phone calls requesting comment on this story.