The South Bruce Grey Health Centre is reducing visiting hours at all four hospital sites and restricting the number of visitors to one at a time in order to decrease the risk of flu transmission.
Effective immediately at the hospitals in Walkerton, Chesley, Durham, and Kincardine visitation for in-patients will only be allowed from 2 to 4 p.m.
According to South?Bruce Grey Health CAO Paul Davies, the decision to reduce visitations for in patients was made for several reasons.
“We didn’t want patients who were already admitted for other reasons to come in contact with the influenza,” he said, adding that this also helps to protect the staff.
“We thought rather than stop visitation altogether, which would be hard on the patients, we would reduce hours. We’ve also got volunteers at health centre entrances to ensure visitors are maintaining the sanitary hand guidelines,” Davies added.
No visitation will be allowed at the Family Birthing Centre in Walkerton.
Davies said pregnant women and new mothers are at an increased risk of H1N1, so a decision was made to stop visitors from entering the  site until further notice.
The visitor restriction represents a substantial change to the birthing centre’s visitor policy as it existed prior to the H1N1 Pandemic, Davies said.
Besides visitor restrictions for in-patients, pregnant women and new mothers, Davies explained that health centre staff and volunteers are taking part in an ongoing infection control program. “We use [the program] not only for the Swine Flu but for all sorts of communicable diseases to ensure we don’t have transmission from staff-to-patient or from patient-to-patient,” said Davies.
All the SBGHC sites remain open for emergency and outpatient clinic visits.The South Bruce Grey Health Centre is reducing visiting hours at all four hospital sites and restricting the number of visitors to one at a time in order to decrease the risk of flu transmission.
Effective immediately at the hospitals in Walkerton, Chesley, Durham, and Kincardine visitation for in-patients will only be allowed from 2 to 4 p.m.
According to South?Bruce Grey Health CAO Paul Davies, the decision to reduce visitations for in patients was made for several reasons.
“We didn’t want patients who were already admitted for other reasons to come in contact with the influenza,” he said, adding that this also helps to protect the staff.
“We thought rather than stop visitation altogether, which would be hard on the patients, we would reduce hours. We’ve also got volunteers at health centre entrances to ensure visitors are maintaining the sanitary hand guidelines,” Davies added.
No visitation will be allowed at the Family Birthing Centre in Walkerton.
Davies said pregnant women and new mothers are at an increased risk of H1N1, so a decision was made to stop visitors from entering the  site until further notice.
The visitor restriction represents a substantial change to the birthing centre’s visitor policy as it existed prior to the H1N1 Pandemic, Davies said.
Besides visitor restrictions for in-patients, pregnant women and new mothers, Davies explained that health centre staff and volunteers are taking part in an ongoing infection control program. “We use [the program] not only for the Swine Flu but for all sorts of communicable diseases to ensure we don’t have transmission from staff-to-patient or from patient-to-patient,” said Davies.
All the SBGHC sites remain open for emergency and outpatient clinic visits.