Hawke’s Bay DHB has revised its visitor policy, and as of noon 12 August implemented a no visitor policy for high risk areas of Hawke’s Bay Hospital.
This means you can only bring a support person with you to the Emergency Department, Intensive Care Unit, Special Care Baby Unit or Mental Health Inpatient Units if you’ve have been granted an exception (by the respective clinical nurse manager or shift coordinator).
For the Maternity Unit, one support person only for the duration of a woman’s length of hospital stay and one named visitor, but no children please.
Other hospital areas and rural facilities will be run on a one visitor at a time basis. More than one person can visit during the day, but each person can only visit once a day.
Under Alert Level 2 the Ministry of Health has advised the use of masks where a one metre physical distance cannot be maintained. Visitors will be asked to wear a facemask (provided) as they enter the hospital.
Visiting hours (1pm-8pm) will be strictly enforced. Security guards at the main entrance to the hospital and other DHB inpatient medical facilities will ask you to scan the COVID tracer app on your phone or collect your phone number manually in case there’s need for contact tracing.
For those going to a DHB facility for an outpatient, radiology, or laboratory appointment, go alone unless you’ve been advised to bring someone with you, or are accompanying a child or someone with a disability. The reason for this is many outpatient waiting areas of the hospital are physically constrained and can’t physically enable social distancing of more than one metre if everyone attending clinics were to bring someone with them.
This visitor policy will help ensure the on-going safety of vulnerable patients and ensure effective contact tracing can be done if required, says the DHB. It goes without saying that no one should visit a patient in hospital if they themselves are unwell and that all visitors should follow due diligence: social distance, wash hands thoroughly or use alcohol gel before and after visiting, etc.
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