University Response to Oct. 30 Story in The Bottom Line

Nov 2, 2020 3:20 PM

The following response was sent on Oct. 31 to The Bottom Line in response to its story of Oct. 30.

The nursing staff at Brady Health Center has been working very hard to provide care for our students in the midst of a pandemic. However, Brady Health is an ambulatory care center, not an urgent care center. It is designed to handle routine illnesses and minor injuries as well as identifying when reports of more severe symptoms, such as chest pain or shortness of breath, must be addressed in an urgent care situation or emergency room.

A caller reporting severe symptoms is referred to an urgent care center or emergency room, even for a COVID-19 test, since the related symptoms require higher-level care.

Students sent to the Quality Inn for isolation (positive case) or quarantine (required because of identified close contact) must be medically cleared first to ensure they do not require higher-level treatment. More severe symptoms need to be reviewed by a physician to determine whether hospitalization should be required.

Here is a link to the process the University has used this entire semester for students: LINK. It is dependent on test result times and other factors sometimes beyond our control. We certainly understand there are complexities in any process and do regret the distress she experienced, but we can report that any student that has been triaged at Brady and needed to be isolated or quarantined has been properly addressed and placed in proper situation for their care.

Since the start of the semester, we have successfully assisted all students who have been brought to our attention who were either isolated because of a positive test or who were required to quarantine from contact tracing.

FERPA prevents us from specifically identifying certain information about a student's without permission, but please note that we are reinforcing our efforts to ensure anyone in a leadership position is informed and supported as needed.

We are also redoubling our efforts at communicating the procedures, reasons for them, and options available to students more directly.