Samaritan Health has announced the loosening of their visitor policy, now allowing inpatients to designate two visitors at a time. They also said the newly relaxed visitation polices are a response to declining hospitalizations for COVID-19 and other respiratory viruses in the region.
Other provisions of the policy change include:
- Patients at the end of life may have more visitors, with the number of visitors decided in consultation with the care team.
- Clergy may visit at any time with patient/family consent and does not count towards the visitor and support-person limit.
- Visitors may be asked to temporarily leave a care area at the discretion of the care team for patient care or safety reasons.
- Also, patients can designate support people, with one permitted to visit at a time – which means a patient can have three total visitors a time.
Medical-grade face masks are still required at all Samaritan hospitals, patient care departments and clinics, per Oregon Health Authority requirements.
The policy change covers Samaritan’s hospitals in Corvallis, Albany, Lebanon, Lincoln City and Newport, as well as the mental health inpatient facility in Corvallis.
There additional restrictions or special exceptions for mental health patients, emergency department patients, pediatric patients and obstetric patients. Samaritan says these are detailed in Samaritan’s visitor policy. They also say patients and visitors may check with the care team for more information.
Samaritan’s full Visitor Policy may be found at samhealth.org/Visitors.
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