After having been closed for the fall semester, the Colgate Satellite Health Clinic will reopen at the start of the Spring 2014 semester. Located at the bottom of Curtis Hall, the Satellite Health Clinic had offered a number of services such as wound care, rapid strep testing and assessment of minor illnesses.

After irregular service during the 2012-2013 school year, the Satellite Clinic closed entirely this fall semester for the first time.

Director of Health Services Dr. Merrill Miller attributed the sporadic closures and ultimate shut down to serious family illness among the clinic staff.

“We at Health Services and Colgate feel that family comes first. It was the right thing for our staff to be with their families at the time,” Miller said.

Miller describes the inability of the Satellite Clinic to operate with so few staff members.

“We would have had part-time staffers step in as we did for last school year, but then we unfortunately lost some full-time nurses and part-time staff,” she said. “Ultimately, we did not think it would be helpful to have the Satellite Clinic open without a regular schedule, especially because these patients can all be handled at the main Health Center.”

Despite the unfortunate series of losses of medical staff, the school will have full health staffing by the spring semester, and therefore will have the capacity to reopen the center.

“Although we hired one new nurse this past spring, it took us a while to build up our staff again,” Miller said. “Nursing takes someone with expertise, and in a college setting it also takes someone with the right personality and temperament to take care of young adults.”

The center will reopen and provide the same functions for students as it previously had.

Contact Hannah Fuchs at [email protected].