“(The hospitals) rely on the partnership of our community members to help ensure the safety of our patients, staff, and volunteers, including children who have not yet had the opportunity to be vaccinated,” the collaborative said in a statement from hospitals in the region. “This includes wearing a mask, not visiting if you are sick or have a temperature, handwashing, and following hospital visitation guidelines.”
Christa Hyson, Assistant Director for Emergency Response for The Heath Collaborative, said the mask requirement will likely be in place for the foreseeable future.
Those who may be immunocompromised continue to be served within the healthcare facilities, and younger children, who have not yet reached to age to be able to receive the COVID-19 vaccination, are also regularly in those facilities. That has led hospitals and health care facilities to keep most precautions in place.
Now, more than 15 months into the pandemic, hospitals in the 11-county region are all allowing one visitor at a time for patients with the respiratory virus. This includes hospitals in Auglaize, Butler, Darke, Champaign, Clark, Greene, Miami, Montgomery, Preble, Shelby, and Warren counties.
COVID-19 patients at times spent weeks in the hospital with no visitors besides the staff. Other hospital patients also faced different levels of visiting restrictions at different times through the pandemic.
Besides video chats and some end-of-life exemptions, the support and connection patients typically received was cut off for those in the COVID units. Front line staff also previously told the Journal-News that it was emotionally difficult to try to fill in that role the best they could.
Premier Health, which operates Atrium Medical Center in Middletown, updated its visitor restrictions on Wednesday. They include a limit of three visitors at a time for non-COVID-19 patient rooms for most patients who are not in maternity units.
At Kettering Health facilities, including Kettering Health Hamilton, visitor policies updated Thursday include three visitors at a time for most patients in non-COVID-19 patient rooms. UC Health updated its visitor policy on Wednesday, which includes a limit of two visitors per day for patients. That would apply to West Chester Hospital.
Officials said the hospitals are continuing precautionary rules because of the possibility of spread in their facilities.
“We just want to take, on the health care side, just an abundance of caution,” Hyson said. “Even as those health orders start to shift, most health care settings in our area will keep masking for now.”
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