SRJC Student Health Services Manager tells his perspective

“What we’ve seen over the years is that there has been, before the pandemic, an increasing number of students coming in each year,” SRJC Student Health Services Manager Bert Epstein said. “And then we got to the pandemic, and it fell in the number of students who are requesting service for us and stayed in this lower level for a couple of years.”

Epstein and other Student Health Services staff members were surprised that the amount of students seeking their services fell despite the major event that had affected the entire world. They theorized that students’ conditions during lockdown prevented, discouraged or made it inconvenient for them to attend drop-in appointments over Zoom.

According to Epstein, the number of students seeking mental health services has since risen back to pre-pandemic levels, supporting the theory. Although the numbers dwindled, many students still sought help from SRJC’s mental health services.