Kenmore, N.Y. (WBEN) - With cold and flu season underway in Western New York and influenza activity on the rise, Catholic Health is implementing a temporary masking policy at all Catholic Health and Trinity Medical facilities beginning this coming Monday.
Under the policy, all associates, providers, contracted staff, students, and volunteers will be required to wear a surgical or approved medical-grade mask in patient care and clinical areas, regardless of influenza vaccination status. The measure is intended to help reduce the spread of respiratory viruses, including influenza, RSV, and COVID-19, and protect vulnerable patients and those who care for them.
Meanwhile, visitors will be encouraged to wear masks in designated patient care areas, including patient rooms, emergency departments, inpatient units, procedural and diagnostic areas, infusion centers, and other clinical settings where patients receive care.
"Anybody visiting would be strongly encouraged to wear a mask when they come into the hospital. But the doctors, the nurses, and the advanced practice providers, such as nurse practitioners and physician assistants, we're going to require them to actually wear a mask when they're directly taking care of patients," said Dr. Thomas Cumbo, infectious disease physician at Catholic Health.
While this policy isn't entirely new for hospital staff and visitors, it is going into effect soon than in years past across the Catholic Health network.
Dr. Cumbo says the flu activity in New York State and around the country has been pretty virulent, so this policy has been implemented out of an abundance of caution.
"This is very different than, for example, masking in public the way we did with COVID. This is directly impacting patients in the hospital," Dr. Cumbo noted.
"It shouldn't be long before we start seeing it more locally here. There definitely is influenza here, but to the levels where we think it might be going - just based on the modeling - it hasn't quite happened yet. So there's still time to get a flu shot, if that's something that that you want to"
Dr. Cumbo adds in a hospital setting, where patients are naturally going to be sicker than anybody else on the outside, this policy will help protect the inadvertent infection of patients from doctors or nurses taking care of them.
"If you're exposed to influenza or RSV or COVID, or any of these things that are still floating around, you can become what's called 'colonized' in your throat and in your mouth, your oral pharynx. And even if you don't get sick, those fomites will have virus in them, and you can directly infect people," he explained.
Catholic Health officials continue to strongly encourage a flu shot for people, especially with this year's flu variant being pretty close to what the vaccine is offering.
What else can people do outside of a flu shot to best protect themselves from coming down with a sickness this cold and flu season?
"One of the best things you can do is just practice really good hand hygiene," Dr. Cumbo noted. "If somebody coughs into their mouth and touches a doorknob, that creates what's called a 'fomite' - it's basically saliva, it's pretty gross - but it's saliva with virus in it. And if you do that, touch the doorknob, then you rub your face, then you're gonna probably catch the flu or, at least, be exposed to the flu. So hand hygiene, wash your hands a lot, take care of yourself, drink plenty of fluids, sleep, do everything you can. Definitely stress makes you more susceptible to illness, but we're all stressed and I understand that's not really something they can easily fix. But the flu shot, washing your hands really well, and trying to take care of yourself is really all you can do."
This is also important with the holidays right around the corner in Western New York.
"The more interactions that you have with people and the more disparate interactions that come together and then disperse back out, that's how the flu spreads. So Thanksgiving, kids going back to school, anything like that, that's a prime opportunity for the virus to start mixing and then spread," Dr. Cumbo said.
The masking requirement will remain in effect throughout the cold and flu season, and will be evaluated on an ongoing basis by Catholic Health’s Infection Prevention and clinical leadership teams.Visitors will be encouraged to wear masks in designated patient care areas
Visitors will be encouraged to wear masks in designated patient care areas
