The Alternative Clinic has been an enormous part of promoting wellness as well as a multitude of services to the female-bodied students of Purchase College. The Alternative Clinic provides an array of services to students such as: pertinent information with respect to sexual health, peer counseling, free pregnancy tests, pap smears, birth control, STI testing, free pelvic exams, and many others.

**As of right now the Alternative Clinic is NOT shut down. The Alternative Clinic is still able to run events and such, but is not able to carry out any medical examinations--which is the issuse at hand.**

Getting enough signatures would help to ensure that the decision is overturned so that the Alternative Clinic can keep providing the students of Purchase College with the medical services they desire.

For those of you who want more information as to how this occurred:

The co-directors of the Alternative Clinic were told that because the clinic is funded by the PSGA (Purchase Student Government Association) and not the college, they (the interns and co-directors and nurse practitioner) aren't SUNY employees so they don't have the same protections as Health Services' staff. The clinic interns also don't have malpractice insurance (the nurse practitioner does, but it wouldn't cover something like an accident in the waiting room). The clinic interns and co-directors were deemed to be too big a legal liability. The risk analysis was done by the counsel for the SUNY system. A lawyer whose job it is to protect the universities from lawsuits came and investigated the Alternative Clinic. However, the co-directors and interns were not informed of this development until their meeting with the lawyer. The lawyer referred to an "investigation" she had done, which did not include speaking to the nurse practitioner, faculty sponsor, or either co-director.  The co-directors were told the investigation was part of a larger review of Health Services' practices. The Alternative Clinic is not affiliated with Health Services, but did use their space.