Indiana University Health announced restrictions Tuesday for visitors to their Lafayette, Frankfort, and Monticello hospital campuses to protect patients from possible coronavirus infection.
In a statement, IU Health said patients at IU Health Arnett Hospital are only permitted four “designated caregivers” as visitors, while patients at IU Health Frankfort Hospital and IU Health White Memorial Hospital are limited to two. All of the hospitals are restricting visitors under age 18 unless they’re patients or the parents of pediatric patients. People with flu-like symptoms, or those who’ve been exposed to someone sick with the flu or the coronavirus, are urged not to visit.
IU Health spokesperson Rhonda Jones said while some hospital units employ consistent visitor restrictions because of the vulnerability of those patients, the new rules are much broader.
“We’ve had visitor restrictions for those [units], but we’ve never had whole hospital restrictions,” Jones said.
Patients headed to the hospitals for care are also asked to limit the number of people who come with them to the emergency room, outpatient surgery waiting rooms, or to doctor’s appointments.
*This post was updated with a correction to Rhonda Jones's quote, which previously read "We've had visitor restrictions before".