FORT WORTH (1080 KRLD) - Cook Children's Medical Center is about to tighten visitation policies ... again.
Starting Monday, patients will only be allowed to have one primary caregiver. No siblings or other visitors will be allowed in the hospital.
It's not a new policy, the hospital implemented it from March through September. Even so, Dr. Suzanne Whitworth, with Cook Children's, says the decision isn't an easy one to make.
"It's terrible to reach this decision, because we're all parents," Dr. Whitworth says. "We're doing our best in a really difficult time to try to keep everybody safe."
There are exceptions to the policy: If the child is in the ER or receiving end of life care, they will be allowed more visitors.
Dr. Whitworth says the rules will only change if community transmission lowers.
Lately, Cook Children's has seen a jump in COVID-19 cases. The hospital's daily rolling positivity rate is 8.3 percent, when for the past several months, the average has been 5 percent.
Eleven children are currently in the hospital being treated for the virus, 3 of them are in the ICU. It's the most COVID-19 patients Cook Children's has seen since the start of the pandemic.
