Students criticise KU’s support for self-isolation

KU’s concierge service introduced during the pandemic to support self-isolating students has been criticised by its users as inadequate.

Students who relied on university aid when testing positive for Covid-19 complained that the assistance provided was limited and not well publicised.

“The service is able to provide food parcels and cleaning products, help with prescription collections, and will be able to check on students regularly to ensure they have essentials,” says the university’s website.

However, the most support students experienced was help with groceries although some complained the food provided was not substantial for the isolation period.

“I did contact the uni asking about their concierge service which I had received earlier in the year when I thought I had covid but didn’t. I got a few packs of biscuits and some soup which was nice but 100% not 10 days worth,” said third year architecture student Joe King, 21.

Students also complained that food supply assistance was only offered to them when they actively asked for it.

“We only knew about the groceries because we received a uni wide email or something like that. Perhaps they could have reached out to individual students,” said third year human rights and sociology student Abbie Baker, 20.

Kings said that the uni had no contact with him apart from the concierge service which he reached out for. He said he hadn’t informed them of his positive result, but the concierge service was told they could’ve passed on his results and contacted him.

Testing positive for covid can also have a negative effect on students' mental health when dealing with limited social interactions and catching up on workloads.

“It [dealing with the mental impact of covid] was incredibly difficult. At the time I was the only person in the house that had it so I was confined to one room and one bathroom for two weeks and that’s a long time to be by yourself and not have contact with anyone, so it definitely does affect your mental health as well as physically.

“It’s also stressful with uni work. Obviously, I was grateful to have extensions but then it's also about worrying ‘oh god in the future I’m going to have more assignments to do at a certain point’ and it was difficult. It was really stressful,” said Baker.

Whilst the service claims to check on isolating students regularly, the mental health support in particular appeared to be insubstantial.

“I do think they definitely could have done more in regards to the mental health aspect. I think they tried to fight it a bit and I think it was just trying to make people know that there is a mental health service in the uni that you can go to but it’s quite busy. There’s quite a waiting list on it so I didn’t go through it,” said Baker.

Although students commended the intentions of the service, they questioned why the aid provided was insufficient during a year in which they paid full tuition fees for online learning.

“The concierge service is really nice but not enough. With all the money we pay them they could improve that massively in my opinion,” said King.

The university could not offer an immediate response but said they were looking into the issue.