RESTRICTIONS on visiting patients at Dorset County Hospital will remain in place for several weeks, its Chief Medical Officer has said.
Numbers of coronavirus patients continue to fall at the Dorchester-based hospital, but have not fallen below its peak of Covid-19 patients in April 2020.
Due to the ongoing national lockdown, family members can only visit the hospital in ‘exceptional circumstances’ including end-of-life care or to attend a child's birth or 20-week scan.
Professor Alastair Hutchison, chief medical officer at Dorset County Hospital, shared the update after the hospital saw its ‘peak’ of patients during January.
He noted it will be a number of weeks before the Dorset County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust will consider changing visitor restrictions.
He said: “Visitor restrictions are still in place and at the moment, I don’t know when we will be able to relax those.
“It is important to know that the number of inpatients are coming down, but the fact is we have still not reached the level of peak in wave one.
“The peak of wave one in April, across Dorset, was 134 people in total. At the moment, the numbers are coming down and we are still at about 229 patients on Wednesday.
“Consequently, it will be another few weeks before we can consider relaxing visiting rules.
“We are obviously very keen to do this as it’s miserable for patients not to see loved ones and vice versa.”
Dorset County Hospital NHS Foundation Trust introduced the changes, which aim to limit the number of visitors and any possible spread of coronavirus or infection.
Currently, people may only visit in ‘exceptional circumstances’ which include end-of-life care and must be from that patient’s household or support bubble.
Any visitors must not visit the hospital if they are suffering from any coronavirus symptoms and visiting is limited to one visitor for a maximum of one hour per day for each patient.
Anyone who is allowed to visit must wear PPE, including a surgical mask, apron and gloves and must arrive at the hospital wearing a face mask.
Only one parent can accompany a child patient and birthing partners can accompany a woman in labour or attend 20-week scans.
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