Islanders planning to make visits to patients at St Mary’s Hospital have been unwell over the last 48 hours (especially if experienced vomiting or diarrhoea) are being asked to stay away whilst staff deal with a suspected Norovirus (viral gastroenteritis) outbreak.
If you do visit the hospital, do enter through the main entrance so you can make use of the hand-cleaning gels in the reception area.
Visitors are also being asked to wash their hands on entering and leaving ward areas.
Carol Alstrom, Chief Nurse and Director of Infection Prevention and Control, said: “Gastroenteritis is highly infectious. I cannot stress enough how important it is for visitors to stay away from the hospital if they have been unwell in the past 48 hours and I would discourage parents from bringing young children in to the hospital to visit friends and family at this time.”
Routine admissions are continuing as normal and the affected area has been closed to new patients.
Dr Paul Bingham, Consultant in Communicable Disease Control, said: “If people in the community begin to show signs of infection the first step is to drink plenty of fluids. The very young and elderly should take extra care as dehydration is more common in these age groups.”
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