HARTFORD, Conn — Several hospitals around the state are limiting visitors once again as COVID-19 numbers continue to climb.
That includes Saint Francis Hospital in Hartford and the other hospitals in Trinity Health of New England’s regional system.
The hospitals are closed to visitors for the time being, but there are exceptions for compassionate care situations which will be made on a case-by-case basis.
“First and foremost, we allow parents to be with their child or a minor who might be in the hospital. Second, we want a visitor to be present at a time of child birth. We also know that patients receiving care at the end of life need to have loved one at the bedside, and we do allow exceptions for visitation anytime a companion or loved one at the bedside would be important in providing the best care to our patients,” said Chief Medical Officer Dr. Phil Roland.
“We look at the number of active cases over a 14 day period. When that goes above a certain threshold, then it’s time for us to pull back on visitation to protect patients and our staff,” said Dr. Roland.
Yale New Haven Hospital also announced no visitors are allowed there for the time being, but there are similar exceptions in place for extenuating circumstances.
Among the visitor exceptions that can be made will be for maternity patients, children who are patients, patients for whom end-of-life is imminent, NICU patients, and patients with disabilities, such as altered mental status; physical, intellectual or cognitive disabilities; communication barriers; or behavioral concerns.
This all comes as the number of hospitalizations across the state continues to trend upwards.
It’s a trend the governor said is concerning as he puts the numbers into perspective.
“We still have a lot of capacity in our regular hospital beds. We only have 50 percent use in our ICU. We have the ability to expand that pretty quickly as need be,” said Gov. Lamont.
“We certainly have more COVID-19 patients hospitalized now than we had during the summer so we’re certainly seeing an increase. However, it’s a much lower census of patients than we had in this first large wave back in April,” said Dr. Roland.