Health Care Reprieve

Lane Community College president emails update about the future of the health clinic 

Lane Community College’s health clinic cut has gotten a stay of execution.

Eugene Weekly reported on Monday that LCC President Stephanie Bulger had announced a proposal to cut the college’s in-person health clinic. The proposal was greeted with consternation, and students flooded the Board of Education with public comments at a recent meeting.

On May 16, Bulger sent out an email updating staff and faculty on shared governance, LCC’s proposed budget as well as the Board of Education’s decision regarding the future of the health clinic. 

Originally, the board planned to hold a special session on Wednesday, May 17 to decide if the health clinic would continue in-person care. In Bulger’s email, she says “As an intermediate step and with support from the Board of Education, we are removing the Health Clinic from the Board Work Session agenda on May 17th.”

Instead, she plans to create a task force of internal stakeholders, including students, faculty, classified professionals, managers as well as outside community partners, to “review models to expand healthcare services to more students at a low cost while maintaining fiscal sustainability for the services,” she writes.

She says student input will provide data to use in the task force’s work. Details of the task force timeline were not given. You can watch Bulger’s recent City Club of Eugene talk on LCC’s current status here.