Ipswich: Restricted Visiting At Hospital
24 February 2012, 15:20 | Updated: 24 February 2012, 17:16
Heart's being told why very restricted visiting has been put in place across all but two wards at Ipswich Hospital.
Patients in some of the wards have been showing symptoms of vomiting and diarrhoea; with some showing signs of the winter vomiting bug Norovirus.
Staff say they want to make sure no illness spreads between wards, patients and the staff, as well as in and out of the hospital.
Siobhan Jordan, Director of Nursing and Quality at the hospital is telling Heart they want people to call before they visit: "We need to contain it as best we can. The best way to contain it is to reduce the movement within the hospital, and that's the movement of patients, of staff, of visitors coming in and out of the hospital. Therefore in order that we can contain it as best we can, we made the decision yesterday that we would actively restrict visiting across the whole hospital.
Now we full appreciate that it's really important that patients see their family and friends while they are in hospital and while they're recovering, so we've given this decision great consideration. With that in mind, we're asking relatives that do want to visit, and there will be circumstances where we will encourage that, that they phone up the hospital and speak to the senior nurse on the ward and they liaise with the nurse who will make it possible for those individuals to visit."
They are still advising people not to visit any friends or relatives who have the sickness bug to make sure it doesn't spread further.
Two wards, the children's and maternity wards, will still have full visiting as usual, but the restricted visiting will affect the rest of the hospital.
The hospital says they expect these plans to be in place over the weekend and will review the situation on Monday.