THUNDER BAY – Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre is implementing new visitor restrictions beginning on Wednesday.
Dr. Stewart Kennedy, the hospital's COVID-19 incident manager, on Tuesday said the rise in cases in the Thunder Bay district from zero last week to 23 on Tuesday, led to the change in policy, an effort to protect patients and staff from the spread of the virus.
“Although we still have no active cases of COVID-19 in the hospital, which is really good, we really feel that we have to reinstate some of our measures to restrict visitation,” Kennedy said.
Starting on Wednesday, care partners will not be allowed into the hospital. They had previously been banned when the pandemic struck in March, but the restrictions were relaxed as case numbers plummeted during the summer months.
“We're still going to allow essential care partners into the hospital. Those are defined as a care partner to a patient who is dying and death is imminent within 72 hours,” Kennedy said. “Certainly (for) any patient who is under 18 years of age, any patient undergoing surgery, women who are giving birth, health patient individuals who require assistance (or) any patient requiring communication needs.”
Kennedy said it's important to control the unnecessary flow of people in the hospital because of the increased risk of COVID-19 in the community.
“Our team takes a lot of criticism because we are more aggressive with some of these restrictions than others,” Kennedy said.
“But as we've said many, many times, we need to really protect this hospital at a higher degree than many other hospitals in other areas because there's only one acute-care facility here in Thunder Bay.”
Surgeries and diagnostic procedures will continue, despite the restrictions.
Earlier in the year the hospital cancelled all elective surgeries to focus on COVID-19, opening an isolation unit that was eventually closed, having never had more than a handful of patients at any given time.
“We do not want to go backward and create another backlog. So on top of the measures we're putting in place, we're continuing to actually deal with our backlog with our diagnostics as well as our surgery.”
Kennedy said as a result, they are also limiting volunteers and medical learners to reduce the number of people allowed in the hospital.
“We still need and want volunteers, but we're going to limit the amount of volunteers we have in the hospital, just for the essential programs,” Kennedy said.
Patients who aren't allowed visitors are being encouraged to communicate with loved ones using their personal electronic devices.
“If not, we will supply them for them,” Kennedy said. “We encourage virtual visits.We're all getting used to virtual meetings and virtual visits.”
Kennedy said the hospital is also re-visiting the idea of having some staff work remotely, to keep them out of the facility.
