Strict Visitor Restrictions Imposed at PHC

Patti Greenwood-O’Keefe, PHC Emergency Management Coordinator, offers a surgical mask and tissue to a visitor Monday morning shortly after the new restrictions went into effect. ERIC GROSS The high incidence of H1N1 influenza as well as a large number of seasonal flu cases throughout the region has prompted Putnam Hospital Center to enact stringent visitor restrictions.

Effective immediately, only two visitors will be permitted to see a patient at any given time. No visitors under the age of 14 will be permitted in the hospital unless they are seeking care and no visitors with signs of the flu—fever, cough, body aches or fever will be permitted to enter.

PHC Emergency Management Coordinator Patti Greenwood-O’Keefe told the Courier Monday during a visit to the county’s only medical center: “We are also encouraging anyone who has been exposed to or has come into contact with a person who has the flu not to visit the hospital under any circumstances. Our proactive approach will limit potential patient exposure to the 2009 H1N1 as well as seasonal influenza.”

Upon entering the hospital visitors may also help themselves to free surgical masks, doses of hand sanitizer as well as tissues that are on display at all the hospital’s main entrances.

Greenwood-O’Keefe said the new restrictions that will “remain in effect for the foreseeable future” were developed in accordance with guidelines provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Several other area hospitals including Danbury Hospital, Northern Westchester Hospital in Mt. Kisco, Hudson Valley Hospital Center at Peekskill- Cortlandt, Phelps Memorial Hospital in Sleepy Hollow and the Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla have also implemented the new visitor restrictions.