VALDOSTA, Ga. (WTXL) — South Georgia Medical Center will now allow patients who are not being treated for COVID-19 to receive a visitor.
They made the decision after monitoring a sharp decline in the number of COVID-19 patients in the facility. The medical center initially began limiting visitation in March.
Administrators say the isolation caused by COVID-19 precautions has taken a mental and psychological toll on patients and that they're glad to be able to reconnect patients with loved ones in person.
"We'd gotten below 30, 35 total COVID patients in the hospital," said Randy Smith, the Chief Nursing Officer, South Georgia Medical Center. "That was really a trigger point for us to really pull together all the key stakeholders in the medical center to have the dialogue about opening up visitation and how that might look."
Each patient can receive only one visitor.
Visitors will receive a temperature check and be required to complete screening questions at the door.
Smith adds that they will continue to monitor the number of cases they have in-house and revisit the visitor policy if numbers spike again.
They now have fewer than 20 COVID-19 patients.
