19 January 2009
Doctors at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals are asking people to think twice before visiting relatives in hospital to try and prevent a winter sickness/diarrhoea bug affecting patients.
The “winter vomiting” virus called Norovirus is particularly prevalent in the community at the moment and some patients at the Northern General Hospital have been affected after visitors have come to the hospital without knowing they were ill or in some cases while they were still being sick or having diarrhoea.
We are limiting the spread of the bug between patients by not allowing new admissions on to wards where patients have the illness but the biggest help will be reducing the contact from visitors.
The symptoms of Norovirus infection generally begin around 12 to 48 hours after becoming infected and the symptoms will last for 12 to 60 hours. They will start with either sudden onset of nausea followed by projectile vomiting or watery diarrhoea. Some people may have a raised temperature, headaches and aching limbs. Most healthy people will just need to drink plenty of fluids and rest up. Most people make a full recovery within 1-2 days. However for hospital patients the symptoms can be more acute making them weak and dehydrated in some cases it can interfere with the effectiveness of the medicines they are taking.
Therefore doctors are asking the public not to visit the Northern General Hospital, Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Weston Park Hospital or Jessop Wing unless they feel it is absolutely necessary.
Hilary Scholefield Chief Nurse said;
“We are really asking the public for their help in preventing the spread of this nasty winter bug. We are asking visitors only to visit the hospitals if it is absolutely necessary in a bid to minimise the risk of the bug coming into wards from people in the community. We would like people to think about is whether they or anyone close to them such as family, friends or colleagues have had diarrhoea, vomiting or fever within the last 48 hours. If this is the case then they should avoid visiting hospital and use alternative methods of contact.”
Those visitors who feel they have to come to the hospital are urged to follow these simple steps in a bid to reduce the spread of the bug among patients:
