Memorial Health System Enacts Visitor Restrictions to Prevent Spread of COVID-19

[March 19, 2020]  Memorial Health System has extended restrictions on visitors to patients at its hospitals in Springfield, Decatur, Jacksonville and Lincoln, and prohibited visitors to inpatients at its hospital in Taylorville, all to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

Restrictions on visitors first were put in place at the system’s hospitals in December to prevent the spread of influenza. Those rules – limiting visitors to two per patient at one time – will continue at Memorial Medical Center in Springfield, Decatur Memorial Hospital in Decatur, Passavant Area Hospital in Jacksonville and Abraham Lincoln Memorial Hospital in Lincoln.

All visitors to those four hospitals must be 18 or older and show no signs of illness.

All visiting of inpatients is prohibited for the time being at Taylorville Memorial Hospital because some inpatients at the hospital face increased risks of medical complications if they become infected with the novel coronavirus, and those patients can’t be segregated from the rest of the patient population.

Visitors are permitted in the outpatient areas and emergency department at Taylorville Memorial.

In addition, events at Memorial Health System facilities with more than 100 attendees will be postponed, canceled or moved to “virtual events” in compliance with “social distancing” guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

There have been no positive COVID-19 cases in the Illinois regions served by the system, though the Illinois Department of Public Health reported Friday that the statewide count of positive COVID-19 cases reached 46, and the number is expected to grow.

[MEMORIAL HEALTH SYSTEMS]