When Monique S. Bell ’03 called the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD)—sick with gastroenteritis, like many others in Cabot House—to bring her to University Health Services (UHS), little did she know that an ambulance would arrive. And the ambulance could only take her Mount Auburn Hospital, even thought she wanted to go to UHS.

“I asked to go to UHS because my doctors know me there, but they could only take me to Mount Auburn,” Bell says. “When I was discharged in the middle of the night, I couldn’t get home because the hospital didn’t have any cab vouchers. I eventually had to call the Harvard shuttle, and they came even though Mount Auburn is outside their usual route.”

Bell’s case is not uncommon.

Besides the cost of an ambulance ride to Mount Auburn, students rarely have a way to get back to Harvard. Where insurance may cover the cost of an ambulance, the inconvenience and inefficiency of the system has UHS officials lobbying for change.

UHS Director David S. Rosenthal ’59 is working in conjunction with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, MIT and Professional Ambulance to allow Harvard students that are not acutely ill to be transported to UHS by ambulance.

Under current Massachusetts state law, ambulances are required to transport patients to emergency care facilities. So if a student calls an ambulance, they automatically will get taken to Mount Auburn Hospital. HUPD often transports students to UHS, but if they are unable to respond to the call, a student will be taken via ambulance to Mount Auburn. HUPD will transport minor injuries, such as sprained ankles, to UHS as a courtesy, saving students hundreds of dollars in ambulance bills.

Under the proposed waiver, critically ill students would still be transported to local emergency rooms; all other cases would be at the discretion of the responding Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT).

“The waiver would be a win/win situation,” Rosenthal says, “Because emergency rooms would get 700 fewer patients a year, and students wouldn’t have to go to an emergency room where they’re exposed to waiting and sometimes no care. Ambulances don’t want to take relatively minor injuries to busy emergency rooms when they could be treated at UHS or MIT.”