San Juan College Opens Student Health Center

San Juan College students now have access to free healthcare on campus with the opening of a new Student Health Center. You’re watching the “Local News Network” brought to you by ACE Hardware of Farmington and the Big Idea Makerspace at San Juan College. I’m Sadie Smith. San Juan College initially opened a temporary clinic in the fall of 2023, but recently held the ribbon cutting and opening for a new Student Health Center mid-February.

Our Student Health Center is an acute care clinic. We offer acute services to our students, so basically we’re treating things like coughs, cold, sprains, strains, rashes. We can do a certain amount of lab tests in the clinic. Things like testing for flu and COVID, mononucleosis, strep throat. We can look for urinary tract infections. We’ve got pregnancy tests.

The Student Health Center is a significant resource for San Juan College students. All healthcare related costs are included in tuition.

The students have been excited to learn that there is a health center. A lot of them are excited that they can come here. It’s a complimentary service included in the cost of attendance. So we do not charge anything. We do not bill any medical insurance, so I think a lot of our students don’t have insurance. 1 out of 10 students don’t have access to healthcare, so this has been great for them.

The Student Healthcare Center is located in between the Zia Conference room and the Health and Human Performance Center on the San Juan College campus.

We’re open Monday through Friday. We do offer extended hours, so Tuesdays and Thursdays we open early in the morning at 7:00 a.m., so that we can catch students if they need an appointment before class. Mondays and Wednesdays, we stay till 6:00 p.m. if anyone needs to come in after class.

A $1.1 million federal appropriation secured by Congresswoman Teresa Leger Fernandez, and a $1.1 million state severance tax bond made the $2.2 million investment in student wellness possible. Additional details may be found on the San Juan College website. For more information about this and other stories, visit farmingtonlocal.news. Thank you for watching this edition of the “Local News Network.” I’m Sadie Smith.