Hello & welcome back!
Dr. Michael Byrne outlines the purpose of the UCC HealthMatters E-zine and what the Health Centre can do to improve your time here at University.
HealthMatters/September, 2013
To those of you returning to UCC for another year, welcome back, and to those of you joining us for the first time, welcome to the best campus in Ireland! I don't make that statement lightly but having seen the way other campuses operate I can safely say that UCC is leagues ahead of most in terms of what is available to our students on a daily basis. And this is where we here at the Health Centre want to make an impact on your student life. While I hope that most of you know that we provide a free consultation service to all currently registered UCC students, I'm not sure how many people realise the huge amount of work going on in the area of health promotion in the University at the moment.
Over this academic year UCC will be fulfilling its goal of becoming the first formally recognised Health Promoting University in Ireland and we would love for you to be as involved in this as possible. It can require as much or as little effort as you are willing to give, it could be volunteering to help out on the UCC Health Matters Day (October 9th), writing an article for this magazine or simply commenting and encouraging the leaders on our Facebook page during UCC Operation Transformation 2014.
This overall initiative is called 'UCC Health Matters', the purpose of which (and by extension this magazine) is to develop a University that looks after all aspects of a student's health, so we are working on: Food&Nutrition, Physical Activity&Active Transport, Mental Health&Wellbeing, Sexual Health, Safety, The Built Environment, Substance Abuse, Sustainable Development and Alcohol. That probably sounds quite daunting but it really is not. Those involved have chosen an area of interest to focus on and are exploring that in relation to UCC.
We are not aiming to scare people into re-examining themselves, far from it. We hope to showcase all of these areas so that we can develop a community spirit and positive attitude to health on our campus.
As for this magazine itself, we are hoping to have 3-4 issues out a year dealing with a whole multitude of health related topics. And we are always looking for more contributors so if you have any interest in producing an article feel free to drop an email to our Health Promotion Worker, Deirdre Griffin at: [email protected].
The other topic that I want to mention briefly is the Student Health Service itself. This service is free of charge to all currently registered UCC students. There are certain things that we have to charge for such as STI screenings, a full list of fees can be found on our site or on our new app. We do our best to ensure that all of our students are cared for because obviously being ill could have a negative impact upon your studies. So feel free to book an appointment if something does arise, we generally have a 1-2 week waiting list and will of course see emergency appointments if something urgent arises on the day but be aware that if you appear as an emergency patient as opposed to booking you will face a lengthy wait.
Beyond that I just want to say I hope that you enjoy the next year here at UCC and get as involved in campus life as possible.
Dr. Byrne
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