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Just seven minutes before boarding her bus home for winter break, Eva Morris received a call. “I saw a call from Wireless Mobile Syracuse University, and I just knew,” she said.

Morris, a freshman in the College of Visual and Performing Arts, took a COVID-19 test on the day of her last final to prepare for an upcoming doctor’s appointment when she arrived home. She was experiencing cold-like symptoms.

Morris went to Flanagan Gymnasium for a confirmatory COVID-19 test, where she said a doctor examined a lump she had recently found on her neck. The doctor told her she may have mononucleosis or strep throat.

After the confirmatory test came back positive for COVID-19, Morris was sent away to quarantine in Skyhall l with salt packets and cough drops from the Barnes Center at The Arch.

After arriving, she initially felt fine. By the second night though, her symptoms worsened.

“I was really struggling to breathe,” she said. “And it was just so uncomfortable. I couldn’t eat or couldn’t drink anything. I was just in so much pain.”

Morris said that even though no one from the Barnes Center was checking in regularly with the students quarantining in Skyhall I, she was able to get a hold of an on-call doctor from the Barnes Center that Morris said provided her with additional care.

Not only did the doctor call in a prescription for penicillin to Walgreens, the doctor woke up early in the morning to pick it up and deliver the prescription, Morris said, because the Department of Public Safety was not conducting deliveries to Skyhall I over winter break. The doctor also brought carnations, cookies, gummy bears and Tylenol to Morris.

Morris said that the doctor came into her quarantine room to check in on her as well.

“I honestly teared up because it felt like no one cared that I was in pain,” she said. “They just cared that I had COVID, and (the on-call doctor) really went above and beyond to help me and look after me. My parents and I are still so thankful and overwhelmed at how nice that was.”

Morris said she has had good experiences at the Barnes Center in the past, and she understands why her positive test was handled the way it was. She wishes the Barnes Center would prioritize a mechanism for checking in on students.

“I was one of the numbers,” she said.

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Other students, along with Morris, feel that the Barnes Center as an institution can come up short when caring for students.

Jenn Kim, a senior in VPA, said she was happy with her experience when removing a birth control implant at the Barnes Center about a year ago. But in the same appointment, they took a test for sexually transmitted diseases with unclear results.

Kim said the person they spoke with at the Barnes Center told her over the phone that the person Kim was seeing at the time must have lied to her about not having an STD, despite Kim stating their partner took a test proving otherwise. Kim said the representative did not answer any of her questions, prompting her to end the call.

“I just happened to run into someone who’s probably having a bad day,” Kim said. “But also, I feel like I could easily say this is an institutional thing. Maybe they’re just not offering very good training to people on how to talk to college students who are in hysterics (about STDs).”

Kim said that they did receive antibiotics despite their uncertainty, but she prefers to not speak with the Barnes Center anymore about similar issues.

They also said they needed to tell a Barnes Center employee she was sick so she could get a mask to fly home at the onset of the pandemic.

Kim no longer utilizes the Barnes Center’ mental health services because she did not find them to be helpful for the unique issues they face as a queer woman of color at a predominantly white institution.

“I stopped because they just weren’t very useful to me,” Kim said. “I’m sure that’s not the fault of the counselors. I’m sure that’s an institutional thing.”

Madison Brown, a junior in the Newhouse School of Public Communications, had similar sentiments. Brown said that she feels she has just received cookie-cutter therapy from the Barnes Center and wishes students had more of an opportunity to personalize their mental health care by dealing with a specialist in the type of care they seek.

“I know that the people at Barnes do the very best that they can do,” she said. “It just seems like they’re not given the right path or guided on the right path. It just seems a little bit disappointing.”

Another student, who wished to remain anonymous, said they called the emergency hotline at the Barnes Center after having thoughts of self harm. Police officers then arrived at their door.

The student expressed they felt there should be a middle ground between a phone call and being confronted with police officers for a mental health crisis, which they recalled as a “very scary experience.”

They added that the Barnes Center having a therapist to speak to, especially outside traditional work hours which is when many mental health emergencies occur, could be a helpful middle step in treating such crises.

Corey Wallack, executive director of health and wellness at the Barnes Center, said in a statement to The Daily Orange that students who contact the Barnes Center about scheduling an appointment are triaged to assess their needs.

“The Barnes Center at The Arch conducted more than 20,000 appointments in the fall semester, not including appointments for vaccinations,” Wallack said. “We continually assess our quality of care through a range of student feedback opportunities and encourage any student with questions or concerns to reach out to us.”

After experiencing seasonal depression, Venus Bradbury sought out therapy from the Barnes Center, which she found helpful and accommodating. Bradbury, a student who has been away from SU to focus on her mental health, found it easy to schedule a regular appointment and thought the therapists offered great advice and suggestions.

She also said seeking out mental health care is not a sign of weakness and anyone who is currently struggling should seek out help if they need it.

Benn Kulcsar, a junior in the iSchool, said they go to the Barnes Center regularly to check in as a part of their gender-affirming transition. They have had multiple experiences where nurses they interact with misgender them despite having their pronouns on their chart.

Kulcsar said they wish nurses would just ask questions if they are unsure of something. They said a prominent space on charts for information, such as pronoun preference, could be helpful in avoiding these issues.

“It’s very invalidating, and it’s disappointing too because I know that there’s a lot of parts of the university that are really forward and progressive,” they said. “(SU has) done a lot to actually be inclusive in the three or four years I’ve been here but I know that the medical field just really struggles with that. And it’s kind of sad to see that that translates into the medical field we have within the university community.”

DISCLAIMER: Madison Brown is a staff photographer for The Daily Orange. She does not influence the editorial content of the News section in her capacity as a staff photographer.

Published on January 27, 2022 at 1:04 am

Contact Danny: ddamron@syr.edu | @dannyamron_