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The Spectator
More All-Campus E-mails, Less All-Campus Illness
October 30, 2009This week, the College confirmed the first case of H1N1 on campus. This fact reinforces the importance of being careful not to expose our friends and peers to whatever illnesses we may have. With the arrival of families on campus this weekend, taking care to your wash hands and stay indoors if you are sick is increasingly important.
The Spectator appreciates the hard work of the staff of the Thomas Brown Rudd Health Center. However, the current situation has highlighted some of the challenges that they face. On Tuesday, about 250 students visited the health center with flu-like symptoms. Although the current staff does their best to keep up during the flu season, the Health Center is not sufficiently staffed to deal with the overwhelming influx of patients. If the administration communicated with more expedience and transparency, it would enable the Health Center to more efficiently assist those who need the most urgent care.
Until Tuesday, it had been over five weeks since the student body last received an e-mail or the College updated its website (www.hamilton.edu/swineflu) concerning a plan of action in case H1N1 was to arrive on campus. Since then, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have changed their recommendations for colleges, no longer advising that colleges quarantine students but rather that colleges "facilitate self-isolation of residential students with flu-like illness." It seems that the administration is claiming to follow these guidelines, and yet it did not make students aware of them until nearly a week after their publication.
The CDC website indicates that these recommendations were updated on Oct. 21. Dean of Students Nancy Thompson sent out an e-mail to all students advising them that Hamilton would follow such recommendations on Oct. 27. The CDC guidelines currently state "those with flu-like illness should stay away from classes and limit interactions with other people... except to seek medical attention, for at least 24 hours after they no longer have a fever, or signs of a fever, without the use of fever-reducing medicines." We cannot help but wonder to what degree the College could have slowed the spread of the flu and eased the burden on the Health Center if the administration had advised students of these guidelines sooner. There are many hard working Hamilton students who do not want to miss class, even if they are sick. They needed to know that they would have the support of the school if they missed a class or two last week, not this week when they may have already spread illness to numerous classmates.
In the future, we hope that the administration will be clearer and more proactive concerning their policy on H1N1. We believe that communication is the key, not only to maintaining a healthy campus but also to preventing panic. We would like the website updated more often, and encourage the administration to point us toward it on a regular basis. By all means, send more all-campus e-mails. At the end of the day, we would rather be bombarded with H1N1 information than stuck in bed for a week.