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VIU clinic sees more than 1k students

Mar 23, 2017 | 5:43 PM

NANAIMO — Vancouver Island University’s Nanaimo campus has seen students numbering in the high thousands use their clinic since it opened.

Coming up to their second anniversary in May, Dr. Carrie Chassels, executive director of student affairs, said they knew their clinic would fill a demand but were surprised by the numbers.

“It means students who would have otherwise neglected their health and not sought medical care, or would have made use of emergency services and caused some delays there, are getting the care they need right here on campus,” she said. “Our students have told us that without the clinic on campus they likely wouldn’t have sought treatment.”

The clinic is staffed by two full-time nurse practitioners, a general practitioner who visits once a week and a psychiatrist once a month. The nurses see between 20 and 30 patients a day.

Through exit surveys, Chassels said they’ve heard students wouldn’t be able to finish their studies if care wasn’t available on campus, since they’d be forced to take so much time off school going to hospitals or clinics elsewhere.

It’s been roughly a year since VIU began offering naloxone kits to students through an agreement with Island Health. Before, students would be written a prescription for the kit and then have to pick it up at a separate pharmacy.

Since the end of January 2016, Chassels said they’ve handed out 10 kits, trained 15 on how to use them and held special substance abuse programming for students.

She said youth at VIU should be concerned about opioids because the fentanyl blight isn’t limited solely to chronic users and the homeless.

“Our concern among our university community is really for someone who might be enticed to try for the first time, or they might consider themselves as a recreational user and they really have no idea what deadly substance has been added to what they’re using.”

Chassels said she couldn’t confirm if any of the opioid kits have been used.

 

spencer.sterritt@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @spencer_sterrit