Effective Saturday, Owensboro Health will implement temporary visitor restrictions. In a release Friday afternoon, OH said restrictions include allowing only one visitor per patient, reducing visiting hours and potential screening of visitors for flu-like symptoms.
This plan, which will continue until further notice, applies to all patients within the hospitals, regardless of unit or condition, who are seen in Owensboro facilities. The restrictions come after the World Health Organizations (WHO) declared COVID-19 a worldwide Pandemic.
Restrictions include:
• Visitors are restricted to one family member or a designated person.
• All visitors must check in at the front desk.
• No visitors under the age of 18 unless they are parents of hospitalized children.
— This policy includes infants and siblings.
— Other family members or friends will not be allowed to enter the facility or to wait in lobbies or common areas. This includes all areas of the hospital — the lobby, waiting areas and common spaces, chapels, cafeteria and seating areas, bank or any other area within the hospital or medical center.
— This policy also applies to ambulatory clinics and urgent care facilities.
• Limit of one visitor per patient.
— This means only one person may accompany a patient to the hospital, ambulatory, clinic appointments or an urgent care visit.
— For inpatient visits, only one visitor may be in the building, including the main entrance, at a time.
• Visitors may be screened for flu-like symptoms, such as fever, cough or sore throat, depending on the situation. Infrared thermometers may be used as an objective measure of fever and do not require direct contact.
• Visitors returning from international travel may not visit until they have been in the United States, symptom free, for 14 days.
• Exceptions to these restrictions can be made in specific circumstances, and by prior approval of the Chief Medical Officer of the system, VPMA of the hospital, System Chiefs and Chief Operating Officers, including:
— End-of-life care
— Two parents or caregivers of pediatric patients as long as neither is symptomatic.
— Labor and delivery – two visitors including the professional support person or postpartum helper.
• Based on case reports of canine COVID-19 and the recommendation Infection Prevention, we are suspending all animal therapy immediately. Service animals will continue to be allowed entrance.
Visitors to Patients Under Investigation (PUI)
For those visitors to Patients Under Investigation (PUI) for COVID-19:
• Limit of one visitor.
• Visitor must not be ill.
• Visitor of a PUI does not enter a patient room; exceptions on a case-by-case basis for compassionate care reasons.
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Click here for all of our coronavirus coverage.
The Owensboro Health coronavirus hotline is available 24/7 by calling 877-888-6647. Call the hotline before seeking in-person care. More information from OH can be found here.
For the latest information and data on COVID-19 in Kentucky visit kycovid19.ky.gov or dial the Kentucky state hotline at 800-722-5725.
For the latest health guidelines and resources from the CDC, visit their website here.
