Visitors under 18 being turned away at local hospitals
Story Created:
Nov 19, 2009 at 12:18 PM EST
Story Updated:
Nov 19, 2009 at 5:17 PM EST
UTICA, N.Y. (WKTV) - Local hospitals are not allowing any visitors under 18 years of age. An increase in reported flu prompted the restrictions at Faxton-St. Lukes Healthcare, St. Elizabeth Medical Center and Rome Memorial Hospital. Signs on the door of St. Luke's main entrance warn of the restrictions. Infection control officials at the hospital say the difficult part is getting word out.
"Oftentimes there may be three children in a family, one child has to have an appointment and they bring the whole bunch of them in and we would really try to encourage those people to try and make arrangements for their other children to stay home and don't come in so we can enforce these rules. It's a difficult situation," says Faxton-St. Luke's Infection Control Manager Heather Bernard.
Officials also want to stress: children under 18 aren't only prohibited from visiting patients; they're prohibited from being anywhere in the hospital.
"Sometimes we've seen people leave children unattended in the lobby and again it's not certain areas of the hospital this is organization wide," says Bernard.
Bernard says such restrictions aren't uncommon in the maternity ward and neonatal intensive care unit during flu season. She says that organization-wide restrictions like this are rare.
In addition to the under-18 restriction, there are additional restrictions in Faxton-St. Luke's and Rome Memorial Hospital's maternity units and pediatric units. There, visitors are restricted to parents, grandparents and birthing coaches.
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