Bloomington Hospital restricts visitation to fight flu

Bloomington Hospital will implement a temporary visitor restriction policy starting today because of increasing cases of patients with flu-like symptoms.

Under the policy, each patient is allowed two healthy adult visitors at a time.

Healthy visitors include those who have not been exposed to the flu virus in the prior week or those who are not experiencing flu-like symptoms such as a fever, sore throat or vomiting.

Amanda Roach, media relations coordinator for Bloomington Hospital, said the policy will be in place throughout flu season.

“This is the best way we can protect our patients and the community from the flu,” she said.

Hospital officials met last spring to create the policy in the event of an increase in flu-like symptoms in the community. With more than 30 people with flu-like symptoms seen in an inpatient or outpatient setting in the past week, the hospital met the criteria for the policy’s implementation.

The hospital joins several across the state that have already implemented similar policies to prevent spreading the flu.

Although visitor restriction policies have not been made mandatory in all state hospitals, Communications Coordinator for the Indiana Hospital Association Shelby Taylor said that many hospitals have created restrictions or at least discussed doing so.

Community Health Network of Indianapolis adopted a similar policy last week, which also limits visits to two immediate family members who are 18 or older at a time.

The network’s hospitals make sure visitors are healthy by screening them with a series of questions related to flu-like symptoms. Once they are cleared, visitors have to wear a green sticker on their shoulder indicating to hospital staff that they are allowed to visit patients.

Lynda de Widt, media relations director for Community Health Network, said that the hospitals have not been experiencing problems with the new policy.

“All of our visitors and patients have been very understanding that we’ve been trying to stop the flu from spreading throughout the hospital,” she said.

Roach said she hopes patients and visitors see the new policy as a public health issue.

“The biggest thing is that we ask people to cooperate with this policy,” she said. “This really is a health and safety issue and we want to help people as much as we can.”