Quarantined CMU student reports not getting food, help or medical attention

New CMU President John Marshall (Photo: Twitter, @MesaVeep)

Colorado Mesa University (CMU) students currently being quarantined in Piñon Hall after being exposed to Covid-19, or who are currently sick with Covid, are telling their parents there is no one stationed in the dorm to help them, and that the school is not providing them with medical attention or even food.

Colorado Public Radio (CPR) published an article September 9 titled, “To vaccinate, or not to vaccinate. At Colorado Mesa University, that was the conversation,” about CMU President John Marshall’s hands-off approach to controlling the Coronavirus pandemic. Currently CMU does not require students to be vaccinated against Covid-19, or to use face coverings, and does not allow instructors to enforce mask-wearing in classrooms — a recipe to spread the Coronavirus, especially with the more communicable Delta variant widespread in Mesa County, and where, according to the Mesa County Public Health Department, only 25-29% of people between the ages of 19 and 29 are fully vaccinated against Covid-19.

Hands off approach applies for quarantined and sick students

After CPR posted the article on Facebook, the parent of a CMU freshman wrote the following comment about the situation his son is facing on campus. His son has been vaccinated, is currently very sick with a breakthrough Covid infection and quarantined in Piñon Hall:

AnneLandmanBlog contacted Mr. Smith to offer help for his son. Mr. Smith lives in Texas, and is currently preparing his home for a tropical storm due to arrive in the next 24-48 hours. He is checking on his son, who is a biology major, by phone every couple of hours.

In his conversation, Mr. Smith made more observations about how CMU is dealing — or rather not dealing –with students with Covid:

“What I don’t understand and am a little concerned about is that they [CMU] do not inform families about their students, have a very vague and almost non-existent [Covid] policy for review online, and haphazard implementation of policies they actually do have. Additionally, I could not get in touch with any of the residence halls in order to send my son at least some food and a case of water. He is very ill right now but not needing emergency treatment.”

He added,

“As far as any medical presence, [my son] said he was told to just let a neighbor in the dorm know if he was feeling worse or to call 911. Unbelievable!

CMU’s hands-off approach to handling Covid apparently goes for sick students, too.

These comments from a worried parent indicate CMU is failing to adequately care for students who are quarantined and have come down with active Covid cases, beyond simply warehousing them in a dorm and leaving them to their own devices.

We will stay in touch with this parent to help him get additional assistance if needed.

 

 

 

 

  6 comments for “Quarantined CMU student reports not getting food, help or medical attention

  1. The lack of a system to help these ill students get well and back to school is appalling. I can’t imagine a student in this situation feeling like a valued member of the CMU community. CMU seems to have created “leper” colonies on campus where ill students have to fend for themselves when the could provide support in a compassionate, appropriate manner

    I find it ironic that CMU has not tapped their nurses aid and practical nurse programs for volunteers to create organized care-giving opportunities for the students in these courses of study.

    • Before the once respectable GOP morphed into the Banana Republican Party, one could contact one’s US representative and ask for help pushing the university to act sensibly.

      Currently, our US representative is Lauren Q. Boebert, who concentrates on subverting the Constitution. One of our Democratic US senators may be able to stimulate CMU’s President Marshall to to protect CMU staff and employees from Covid-45.

      Thanks to Anne for offering aid to the ailing CMU student.

  2. This denial of food honors the GOP’s “life begins at conception and ends at birth” worldview. They’ll throw a bible and a gun his way before they ever give him a sandwich.

    • I love you for saying it. Bible Gun comparison! they are a stuck people, at which point they went blind, blinder, dumb, freedumb dummer.

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