Beaufort County hospital reports spike in flu cases, restricts children visitors
Due to a spike in the number of flu cases, Beaufort Memorial Hospital is restricting the amount of visitors allowed at the hospital “for the immediate future,” according to a Thursday news release.
The hospital is restricting visitors under the age of 18 from visiting patients in the hospital to prevent the spread of the flu, according to the release. Adults who have flu-like symptoms — runny nose, sore throat and fever — are also encouraged not to visit patients.
“We hope that these precautions will prevent spread of the flu and other viruses, and better enable us to care for those patients who most need to be in the hospital at this time,” Sherri Rabon, infection prevention specialist at the hospital, said in the release.
Rabon encourages visitors to limit the number of visits to patients in the hospital and to use the hand sanitizer, tissues and surgical masks available at the hospital’s entrance, the release said.
“We ask our community to bear with us as we work as efficiently as possible to help our patients during the current flu season,” she said.
Beaufort Memorial had 75 patients with positive flu tests last week, spokesperson Courtney McDermott said. The threshold the hospital uses to determine whether to restrict visitations is 50 cases in a week.
About half of the cases the hospital has seen this year have been children, she said.
“Flu season lasts through March so it is not too late to receive the flu vaccination,” she said. “The CDC recommends vaccination as the best preventative method to prevent the flu and potentially serious complications from the flu.”
The vaccine is recommended every year for people six months and older, she said.
The hospital set the same restrictions on visitors in February due to another rise in flu cases. The number of cases the hospital was treating in February jumped from 30 to 50 a week to about 100 a week before the restriction was in place.
For more information or updates regarding the restrictions, visit BeaufortMemorial.org.
This story was originally published December 27, 2019 at 3:14 PM.
