THUNDER BAY – Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre may relax its visitor policy as early as next week.
But the change won’t mean hordes of people will be allowed to flock to see patients.
Dr. Stewart Kennedy, who heads the hospital’s COVID-19 response team, on Wednesday announced the facility may allow up to one additional care partner per patient, as well as one essential care partner, between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. each day.
According to the hospital website, patients determine who their care partners are. It could be a family member, a friend or a significant other, someone who provides physical, psychological, or emotional support.
Kennedy said the hospital had to severely restrict who was allowed inside the building during the early stages of the pandemic out of an abundance of caution, given Thunder Bay Regional’s location and importance to the health care of those living in much of Northwestern Ontario.
“We’ve been quite restrictive – more restrictive than most communities in Ontario and probably Canada. But the need for us to be restrictive is to protect our hospital environment, our health care workers, and our patients, because we’re the only show in town,” Kennedy said in a release posted to the hospital’s Facebook page.
“We’re the only acute care Hospital between us and Toronto, really, when ease and speed of travel is taken into account. We don’t have a secondary facility. If something happens and we have a spread of COVID-19 here in our hospital, that can be devastating to health care workers and patients. We need to protect this environment more-so than other municipalities, because we have no backup.”
Kennedy added the hospital will likely maintain stricter rules than hospitals elsewhere in the province, even as Ontario enters the next phase of its reopening plan.
“Stage 3 is beginning in Ontario. There’s going to be more exposure. We have to monitor the amount of exposure and the amount of COVID-19 in the community before we open visitation up widely. It’s to protect our patients and our staff,” Kennedy said.
He said the intensive care unit is a particularly good example why restrictions will remain in place.
“If our intensive care unit had to shut down, people would die. There’s no question about it,” Kennedy said. “Similarly, if our maternity unit had to shut down due to an outbreak, there would be huge health outcomes. This is why we need to protect our health care environment more-so than most places in Ontario and Canada.
“We understand how difficult it is. We hear patients’ concerns every day, and we feel for these patients because it’s not our normal business. It’s not how our hospital has promoted patient and family-centred care. But things have changed, they will continue to change, and our whole focus is the health of our patients and the facility to prevent the spread of COVID-19.”
