Visitor restrictions have been relaxed at the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance.
CKHA CEO Lori Marshall broke the news on CKSY's CK Mornings with Chris and Jen, saying that hospital patients will now be allowed one visitor per day from 3 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. Marshall said it's a quieter time of the day with fewer people coming to the hospital for tests and other visits. She hopes not everybody will come all at once at 3 p.m.
"[The medical officer of health] doesn't want to see a Winners lineup at the hospital and neither do we," said Marshall. "If we do see that we have a bit of a lineup we'll be sending people out to their cars to wait to bring in folks in a more orderly kind of fashion."
Visitors must check in to the nurses' station before visiting.
Marshall said the only exception to the newly loosened visitor regulations relates to patients who are in the hospital because they have tested positive for COVID-19. She said they still won't be allowed visitors. There are currently no COVID-19 patients recovering in the hospital. There was one up until this week.
Marshall said visitors will be required to wear masks when they come to the hospital and if they don't have their own, the hospital will provide one for them. She said visitors will also be required to hand sanitize at the hospital entrance and will go directly to their assigned patient's room. Marshall said visitors will be required to go directly to their vehicles when they leave their patient's room with no detours to Tim Horton's or the cafeteria. Visitors are also not allowed to visit other patients and cannot come back into the hospital that day once they leave.
"No going to see somebody else that you happened to know is in the hospital," she added.
Marshall said visitors who are sick and fail the screening won't be allowed into the hospital.
"When you come to visit, you are essentially bringing every person you have had contact with over the last 14 days and every other person that each of those people had contact with," added Marshall.
CKHA said visitation rules could change at any time during the pandemic to keep staff, patients, and the community safe. Visiting outside of the specified visiting hours is still permitted for patients who are dying or have a chronic illness but it must first be approved by the care team.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Chatham-Kent had three active cases of COVID-19 in self-isolation. One of them is in the community and the other two are at Greenhill Produce greenhouse operation in Kent Bridge.
