Center should honor confidentiality
Campus Times
October 4, 1996
Cartoon by Stephanie Lesniak
Students of the University of La Verne are able to visit the Health
Center for help with anything from a splinter to a pregnancy test, and with
the recently expanded hours of the Center and constantly growing population
of the University, more and more students are seeking these services. These
students have always been secure in the knowledge that the Health Center
promises confidentiality. However, students are finding that this sense
of security is false, and Health Center confidences are sometimes breached.
While there is not a bulletin board listing everyone's illnesses and test
results, casual conversation and other careless practices have resulted
in public knowledge of information that should remain private.
The following incidents have actually occurred to students who sought the
so-called confidential services of the Health Center.
·A student sits in the Health Center waiting room. From one of the
examining rooms, she overhears a nurse tell another student "Oh, you're
not pregnant!" As this student leaves the examining room, her identity
is known, as the students in the waiting room match her face with the overheard
results.
·A student walks into the Health Center to ask a routine question and
begins speaking with a nurse. The conversation leads to the student telling
the nurse her major. The nurse casually proceeds to tell the student names
of other students sharing her major that have recently been to the Health
Center.
·A student walks into the Health Center to receive results of a test.
The nurse tells her the results, but the student does not recall taking
that particular test. The nurse then realizes that she has given another
woman's results to the student by accident.
·A woman goes to the Health Center for a yeast infection. After leaving
the examining room, the nurse hands her a feminine medication in the waiting
room in front of other students.
Receiving a remedy in front of an audience is not only embarrassing, it
is inexcusable. Knowing the results of a stranger's test is unjustified.
Hearing the words "You're not pregnant" may be something one dreads
or prays hearing, but when these words are hollered and overheard in the
waiting room, it is not only humiliating, it is a breach of confidentiality,
and it has to stop.
Perhaps the structure of the Health Center itself contributes to this problem.
Brochures on birth control, date rape, sexually transmitted diseases and
a variety of other health and safety concerns are located right at the entrance,
where students seeking this information are in full view of the waiting
room, the doorway and the street as they search for the pamphlet that they
suits their particular needs. The main desk is located in front of the waiting
room, where waiting students can hear and see other students making their
appointments. And on days when free HIV/AIDS testing is performed, little
attempt is made to stagger appointments or isolate students in the waiting
room-students being tested must sit in the very public waiting room as they
watch an educational video and wait for their appointment.
This is not to minimize the important role the Health Center plays on campus.
On the contrary, it offers students a valuable service. It allows them to
seek free, high-quality health care that they desperately need. This should
not be overlooked.
However, the University of La Verne is a small school where most of the
students tend to know each other. When students leave the Health Center
knowing the most personal information about their fellow students, they
will, no doubt, begin wondering whose ears their own health information
has found its way into.
This type of fear can not only spread a rash of rumors within the school
community, it may also prevent students from seeking the health care they
need. This, perhaps, is the most dangerous side effect of this epidemic.