Piedmont students aren’t made of money. The reason many of us can even think about attending here is because of the number of scholarships the college is willing to give to students who work hard to keep their place here. When Piedmont began requiring all students who lived on campus, which is a requirement of keeping Piedmont’s scholarships, to have medical insurance, students had to make a decision: do I go further in debt to pay for insurance, or do I leave Piedmont?

For some, leaving Piedmont was the answer. Some students had medical insurance and were able to waive Piedmont’s. And for those that wanted to stay, and didn’t have the luxury of parents with medical insurance, they had to adjust their budgets to find a way to finance Piedmont’s insurance.

Piedmont students have a plethora of two options to seek medical help at Tim’s Pharmacy and First Care of Habersham. Unfortunately, neither of these places take insurance. You must be thinking, “Oh, Hadley. I’m sure Piedmont has options for healthcare that take the insurance that they made us pay for!” Reader, you’d think so, but no. Res Life sent out an official email with a document titled “Do you need to see a doctor?” on Aug. 23, listing these two facilities as places for Piedmont students to get medical attention. 

“Well, I’m sure they didn’t know either of these places accepted insurance,” You might say. But, friends, they sure did. The document added, in bold, under each of these establishments, “Insurance is not accepted,” they both have limited hours, and they only take walk-ins.

So, basically, if you have the flu and don’t have a lot of money left from your 20-hour-maximum Piedmont student work week, you’ll just have to suffer. Maybe if you’re lucky, you’ll have a really awesome roommate, nearby family member or even a significant other that can drive your nearly-dead body to the CVS Minute Clinic in Gainesville, which is only a measly 25 miles away. Maybe last semester you might have been able to ask the shuttle to take you, but it no longer takes calls for pickup, so you can cross that off as an option.

If only Piedmont was crawling with nurses and nursing majors, we could have some kind of on-campus healthcare!