The Student Health Center is being relocated to promote the visibility and accessibility of the health resources available at El Camino College.
The new location for the center will be on the north side of campus behind the Planetarium and Natural Sciences Buildings in a newly constructed space.
The new Health Services Building is expected to open by the end of the semester.
Currently, the center is located in one of the oldest buildings on campus next to the PE South and around the Art and Behavioral Science Buildings.
Erick Mejia-Ordonez, a student ambassador for Student Health Services, said he is excited about the move.
“I think it’s going to definitely be more accessible for students, just because there is a large volume of students who walk near the Planetarium,” he said. “It’ll be more accessible, more in their view, in comparison to the old building.”
Mejia-Ordonez said when he started to work at El Camino he did not know where the Student Health Center was because “it was hard to see.” He believes the new building is more open and easier to find.
The new Health Services Building will have a conference room to host workshops and have more space for mental health resources in the building. Before the Health Center had to rely on borrowed space to host workshops.
The Health Center can be accessed by El Camino College students who have paid the health fee each semester. The fee is $26 per fall or spring semester and $22 per summer session.
The resources offered are either low-cost or free and range from appointments with a doctor or a nurse practitioner and access to affordable medication.
Faculty Coordinator of Student Health Services Susan Nilles said the relocation was overdue for the sake of students’ physical and mental health.
“I think we have an opportunity [in the new space], students are going to be passing by more naturally,” Nilles said.
Lina Berrio, a registered nurse at the Student Health Center, said having the space to provide services “in-house” is a nice improvement.
“It’s nice to have a central location for all the services we provide,” she said.
The new center will have four rooms allocated to mental health, whereas the previous center only had two.
Berrio said the space provided by the new Health Services Building will be beneficial because the number of staff has increased. The center has hired two new employees to help alleviate in-person waitlists for mental health resources.
“We have more people providing therapy, so there are more appointments,” Berrio said. “The chiropractic services also expanded, they have residents that come in and more students have come this semester.”
Berrio said everyone is relatively excited to be in a new space.
“Logistically, the setup was not conducive, we didn’t have a nurse’s area and everyone was crammed in an office,” Berrio said. “So I think the consensus is that everyone is relatively excited for a new space with new things.”
The intended date for the Health Center relocation was set for the beginning of the fall semester but was pushed back a few months due to construction and supply chain issues.
Nilles said while the construction delay was unfortunate, the excitement from everyone at the center remains to demonstrate programs from the Student Health Services.
“I think we’ve just come a long way in terms of the programming that we offer,” Nilles said. “Now the outside is going to match the inside, we worked really hard to get a really good team and really good programming out there, so I’m looking forward to that.”
