Samaritan Visitor Restrictions

With a serious uptick in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in Benton, Lincoln and Linn counties, Samaritan Health Services is enacting tighter visitor restrictions effective immediately. Under the new policy, visitors are NOT permitted at Samaritan-affiliated hospitals, including outpatient departments, at this time. There are a few limited exceptions:

 Pediatric patients may have one healthy adult visitor (age 18 or older) per day.

 Labor and delivery patients will be permitted one healthy adult visitor throughout their hospital stay.

Laboring mothers may have one additional healthy adult visitor during labor and delivery.

Patients at the end of life may have visitors. Patients with disabilities have a right to support persons. Every visitor is required to sanitize their hands upon entry, wear a mask at all times in the facility and abide by all other infection prevention measures. Additional screening precautions and additional facility rules may apply. In Samaritan’s outpatient facilities, such as providers’ clinics, physical rehabilitation and other clinical settings, patients are asked to come ALONE to their appointments.

When necessary, the following exceptions are allowed:

 Nursing infants under 12 weeks old may accompany their mother.

 Minor outpatients may have one adult accompany them.

 Outpatients needing wheelchair transportation to an appointment may have one adult accompany them.

 Outpatients who cannot be left unattended may have one adult age 18 or older accompany them.

All visitors must be free of symptoms of COVID-19 or other respiratory infections. Because some waiting areas may be too small to accommodate visitors, they may be asked to wait outside the facility. For information about COVID-19, visit samhealth.org/Coronavirus.