You can still go there for the morning-after pill. And advice about a cold is no problem. Nurses Jolly Oord and Mieke Wijnen hold daily consulting hours in the medical centre. Due to a lack of a campus physician.
About nine-hundred UT-students are dependent on the medical service of the campus for primary care. `And these will all be healthy students', says Monique Troost, co-ordinator of the campus practice. `Employees of the UT and students with a chronic illness have been allocated a permanent family doctor in Enschede by now.'
The question for students of course is now: when do you go to the consulting hours of the nurse and when do you go to a family doctor? According to Troost students can go to the practice nurses with all questions and complaints. `These are specialised highly-educated functionaries who take over tasks from the family doctor independently. The nurse judges, using a list of questions, which treatment should take place. Then she can help or advise herself, or refer to a doctor, physiotherapist, or the student psychologist. She works under the responsibility of a family doctor and gets in touch with him or her if necessary.'
Jolly Oord, who has been nurse on campus for a short while now, explains what happens in practice: `The Dutch association of general practitioners has compiled a list of questions for each complaint. Using that I can assess how severe the complaint is and what the next steps should be. I always need the approval of a family doctor when prescribing medication and writing repeat prescriptions.'
The consulting hours of the practice nurse has a pilot phase of a year. The coming months will show which medical questions students bring to the nurses. The UT-practice will then respond accordingly. `We will, for example, hold a consulting hour for warts each third Thursday of the month', Oord explains. `Warts are common, especially in people who play sports and use joint showers and dressing rooms. It is easy to combat the complaint with nitrogen.'
However, the nurse has not yet discovered typical student diseases. `I have discovered that students do not allow for a little time to get over a disease. Two days of a sore throat during the exam period is surely not enjoyable, so they want to get rid of it quickly.'
Each visit during consulting hours should be paid for in cash. This also applies to a visit at a family doctor. The bill can then be claimed at the insurance company. The practice nurses hold consulting hours from Monday to Friday from 8.30 to 10.00 hr. More information: www.utwente.nl/en.
