Student Health Services Director David McBride addressed concerns about Boston University’s H1N1 policy to about 60 attendees at Student Union’s second General Assembly of the year Monday.
McBride said BU’s isolation policy is both open and in accordance with national protocol for handling students with flu-like symptoms.
”We had the secret plan to use Danielsen as the flu center at BU’ is not the case,’ McBride said.
McBride said BU has provided affected students with a place to go when they are sick.
‘What happened is one floor on Danielsen was open,’ he said. ‘There has been one student who was moved to Danielsen because he was sick.’
Isolation for patients is implemented until fever is resolved, which usually takes up to four days, McBride said. But he said the ideal plan is to have the healthy roommates move.
‘We move healthy students because it’s easier to move them to another room,’ McBride said.
McBride said in diagnosing swine flu, BU, along with Massachusetts, does not confirm H1N1 with a swine flu sample but instead assumes students with the flu have the common strain.
‘There’s not a test that’s routinely available for swine flu,’ McBride said. ‘We’re making a clinical diagnosis based on the symptoms.
College of Arts and Sciences junior and Student Union Campus Safety Committee member Robert Skinnion said he thinks students need to trust BU policy.
‘The administration has repeatedly denied allegations that Danielsen is some kind of flu ward and until we receive evidence to the contrary, we need to take their claims at face value,’ Skinnion said.
In a Sept. 17 Daily Free Press article, College of Communication junior Angela Holohan, who was living on the second floor when a student with flu-like symptoms moved there, said she was ‘upset’ BU did not inform her of the situation.
‘They didn’t have to tell everyone at BU about it, but they could’ve told the people on the floor at least,’ Holohan said in the article.
The Daily Free Press reported on Sept. 22 that students said they were not so much concerned about BU’s strategy for isolating students, but that administrators weren’t open with students about isolation locations.
In the same article, BU spokesman Colin Riley confirmed that 60 rooms were set aside for isolation purposes.
SHS recommends students take care of each other by ordering flu meals and participating in the flu buddy system, McBride said.
‘Students take on the responsibility to take care of one another,’ McBride said. ‘Pick up ready to go meals, while sick people put masks on.’
SHS has also been working with the provost office and faculty to moderate the attendance policy regarding sick students, McBride said.
‘The decision ultimately rests with the school and college, McBride said. ‘We don’t want people who are sick to go to class and to extend the ability to be absent with the opportunity to make up work.’
In addition, McBride suggests students take seasonal flu shots while swine flu vaccine is scheduled to be available in October.
‘The worst case scenario is we have a peak in swine and seasonal flu at the same time,’ McBride said. ‘That’s what we’re trying to avoid.’
CAS senior and Environmental Affairs Director Athena Laines said the lecture was informative.
‘He cleared up a lot of the questions I had and put to rest some of the rumors I had heard,’ Laines said. ‘I feel a lot safer now knowing all the facts.’
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