As COVID-19 cases surge, some hospitals banning visitors

As eastern Connecticut experiences its biggest C OVID -19 surge of the pandemic, some hospitals there are reinstating vi sitor restrictions while official sat facilities are monitoring the outbreak’ s path.

On Monday, Lawrence +Memorial Hospital in New London became the latest facility to ban vi sitors, announcing in a statement it was“restricting visitor access except under extenuating circum stances .”

“Rare exceptions to this policy maybe made at the discretion of the patient’ s clinical team and we will do our best to ac com modate exceptions where possible, but our first priority is to protect the health of our patients, visitors and staff ,” according to the hospital’ s statement.

According to the hos pit al, New London County has seen a 267 percent increase in the number of people testing positive with C OVID -19 over the past two weeks. As of Monday, there were 143 new cases reported across the county from over the weekend.

Lawrence+ Memo rial’ s announcement came days after Hartford Health

Care announced Back us Hospital in Norwich, Wind ham Hospital in Windham and Nat ch aug Hospital in Mansfield, were reinstating visitor restrictions at all in pati en ta nd outpatient lo cations.

The restrictions followed the state Department of Public Health issuing aC OVID -19 alert for Norwich. The New

London County mu ni cipa li ty saw 58 new cases over the weekend. Last Thursday, Norwich recorded 27 new cases— the city’ s highest singleday total.

“Last week, we noticed a trend of rising positive rates and increasing hospit aliza ti on ,” said Dr.

A jay Kumar, Hartford Health Care’ s chief me dical officer .“It made sense for us to include an ad diti on al layer of scrutiny .”

Hartford Health has a total of seven hospitals— including St. Vincent’ s Medical Center in Bridgeport—and it isn’ t expected to institute tough er restrictions there any time soon, Kumar said. But he and other officials will continue to monitor cases and hosp it alizati ons to see if more restrict ions are warranted.

Kumar said most of the hospitals have a limit of one visitor per patient, unless there are ex te nu ating circumstances. He said hospitals do not want to ban visitor sunless the C OVID numbers drastically rise.

“We believe strongly that families’ interaction with patients is vital for their healing ,” he said.

At Nu van ce Health system—which includes Danbury, Nor walk, New Milford and Sharon hospit a ls—the\ policy allows for one visitor per day for up to four hours for most in patients.

The policy is reviewed weekly by leaders from various sector soft he hospital, including nu rsing, infection control and quality, said Steve Me th, Nu vance’ s chief ex perien ce officer.

“The health, safety, and well-being of all patients, staff, and visitors is paramount and guides our decision-making about how many visitors we allow in our hospitals and facilities ,” Me th said .“We balance this with ens uring we meet thee motional needs of our patients by allowing loved one sat the bed side .”

The Nu van ce hospitals have nine or fewer COV ID patients. New Milford Hospital has none.

“I wouldn’ t call this yet a surge of any kind ,” said Dr. John Murphy, p re sident and CEO of Nu van ce Health .“We’ re very carefully monitoring it .”

Stamford Hospital also has refrained from reinstating full visitor restrict ions, though visitors are still limited to one per patient per day, between 1 and 5 p.m ., said Audrey Wise, Stamford’ s execut ive director of marketin ga nd communications.

Like other officials, she said the policies are subje ct to change though “there is no specific trigger” for changing the rules.

While the spike in eastern Connecticut is troubling, it’ s not unexpected, Kumar said.

“We expected to see some spike sand hot spots happening across Connec ti cut ,” he said .“( But) we’ re not as panicked as were in March that there would be a surge in pati en ts .”

Staff writer Julia Perkins contributed to this report.