Getting health care

Like many universities, McGill offers a student health clinic. Unfortunately, it's almost impossible to actually access the services, even when the support staff aren't on strike. To actually get help, you have two options:

• If it's not urgent: there is one day a month, usually but not always the 15th, on which you can make appointments for the following month. Any other time, tough luck.
• If it's urgent: you can show up at 7 AM, stand outdoors until 8 AM, and hope you were early enough to get one of the very limited number of drop-in slips. This gets you in to see a randomly-assigned doctor, fora few hurried minutes. If it's for a prescription renewal, the chances are slim that they will know anything about you or your condition. Just cross your fingers and hope they're one of the competent ones.

If neither of those options suit you, well, go somewhere else. At least this is free, unless you want dentistry or vaccination or medication.