The Providence Swedish hospitals located in the South Puget Sound area — including Providence Centralia and Providence St. Peter — are changing their COVID-19 policy to a self-screening one.
“Over the past two years, Providence Swedish Hospitals have learned to manage COVID-19 and have strong protocols in place to keep our patients and caregivers safe,” stated a news release from Providence.
Starting on Oct. 24, entrances to the hospitals will no longer be staffed. By entering the hospital, visitors will confirm they don’t currently have COVID-19 or any associated symptoms and they haven’t been exposed to the virus in the last 10 days.
If visitors can’t meet those guidelines, they are asked to avoid visiting until symptoms have passed.
The visitor policy at the hospitals will remain the same, limiting patients to two visitors and requiring universal masking, hand hygiene and social distancing.
Masks and hand sanitizer stations will still be available at hospital entrances.
Moving to self-screening for COVID-19 goes along with guidelines set by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and still follows Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance.
For more information, visit Providence’s COVID-19 blog at https://coronavirus.providence.org/.
