Memorial Health, HSHS St. John’s Ease Visitor Guidelines

[March 19, 2022]   As new COVID-19 cases in central Illinois continue to drop, the five hospitals in Memorial Health and HSHS St. John’s Hospital in Springfield are easing their visitor guidelines today.

HSHS St. John’s is part of the nine hospitals within HSHS Illinois. The other eight hospitals recently eased visitor restrictions.

New COVID-19 cases within a 16-county region of central Illinois have dropped to 10 cases each day per 100,000 residents, meeting the bar to reclassify the transmission rate to “medium” from “high.” It’s the first time since July 21 that the transmission rate has been at medium.

“Our first priority has always been and continues to be to keep our patients and frontline health care workers safe from this virus,” said Dr. Raj Govindaiah, senior vice president and chief physician executive for Memorial Health. “Once we reached a medium transmission rate in the region, it triggered some important changes across Memorial Health allowing us to de-escalate our emergency response and return to more normal operations. We’re grateful we have reached a point in our fight against COVID-19 where we can safely ease these guidelines.”

Medical-grade masks are still required for all patients and visitors entering Memorial Health hospitals and clinical settings or HSHS St. John’s Hospital. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention requires hospitals to issue masks.

“As COVID-19 hospitalizations remain low in our communities, we are relieved to be able to ease our visitor guidelines at HSHS St. John’s Hospital and all our HSHS hospitals in Illinois,” said Dr. Gurpreet Mander, chief physician executive of HSHS Illinois. “We are grateful for our colleagues who have courageously and competently cared for our patients through multiple surges now, and thankful to the public for their understanding as we’ve worked to protect the most vulnerable among us.”

Eased guidelines at Memorial Health and HSHS St. John’s Hospital include the following:

· No visitors will be allowed for patients being treated for COVID-19 or patients under evaluation for COVID-19 until a COVID-19 infection is ruled out.

· Two visitors will be allowed per patient. Memorial Health will also permit one overnight visitor.

· At HSHS St. John’s, no visitors under the age of 18 will be permitted unless they are the parent of a child receiving care. At Memorial Health, the age threshold is no one younger than 16 unless they have a child admitted for care.

Visitors can consult each hospital’s website for a complete list of guidelines:

HSHS St. John’s:
St-Johns.org/VisitingHours.

Memorial Health:
Memorial.Health

[Michael Leathers]