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Hospitals to limit visitors

Providence St. Peter: Precautions planned to reduce H1N1 exposure

VENICE BUHAIN; The Olympian | • Published October 22, 2009

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OLYMPIA – Starting today, visitors to Providence St. Peter Hospital will be screened for flu symptoms before they can visit hospitalized friends and family.

Children younger than 18 will be allowed to visit only immediate relatives or terminally ill patients.

Providence is adopting the protocol at its Olympia and Centralia hospitals to prevent the spread of the H1N1 influenza virus, officials announced Wednesday.

“We’ve been asking people to take the necessary precautions. If you feel ill, don’t come to work, don’t visit the hospital,” spokeswoman Jennifer Reynolds said. “We are stepping it up to the next level, trying to minimize the risk of a flu spread around the hospital.”

Reynolds said the hospital is restricting visits as a precaution.

Visitors will be allowed to use only the main entrance in the front of the building and the entrance in the Emergency Center, and a staff member will screen every visitor for flu-like symptoms, which include cough, fever of higher than 100 degrees and sneezing, Reynolds said. Normally, visitors can use any of eight entrances at the hospital.

Exceptions will be made in certain cases, such as if a visitor is the only support system for a woman who is giving birth, or if visitors are seeing a terminally ill patient, she said. But even in those cases, visitors might be asked to wear a mask and gown and be restricted to the patient’s room, she said.

H1N1 is an influenza virus that’s new to the human population, which means most people don’t have immunity to it. That means that for most people, H1N1 is more easily caught and spread than seasonal influenza.

Epidemiologists have reported that most people who have fallen ill with H1N1 and had complications have been younger than 50. Local schools also are reporting increased absences because of flu symptoms.

The risk to young people prompted the hospital’s restrictions on visitors younger than 18 and also has affected its volunteer program, Reynolds said.

“As of Monday, all of our junior volunteers were asked to not come in,” she said.

The change affects the main hospital, but patients in Cardiac Rehabilitation, Inpatient and Physical Rehabilitation will be able to use those departments’ usual entrances.

The vaccine for H1N1 is not yet widely available to the public in Thurston County, although people who have been identified as at a high risk for complications are being targeted by doctors for the county’s limited supply of that vaccine, said Thurston County Public Health and Services director Sherri McDonald.

Capital Medical Center officials did not return phone calls Wednesday seeking comment.

Venice Buhain: 360-754-5445

vbuhain@theolympian.com

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