Visiting hours at public hospitals across Western Australia have been streamlined to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 and provide consistency for the public.
Visitor hours will be 10am to 12pm and 5pm to 7pm, seven days a week.
Visiting hours do not apply to essential visitors, mental health advocates or other statutory personnel as defined in the Guidelines by the Chief Health Officer. Essential visitors include for compassionate or palliative care reasons.
In some essential situations, clinical judgement may allow a visitor to stay as an essential visitor if they are helping feed a patient over lunch time.
Where possible, visitor numbers should be limited to the same two visitors per patient a day, with a maximum of two visitors at any given time.
This consistent approach will make life easier for those visiting a loved one in hospital while ensuring appropriate screening of visitors can be carried out to keep patients safe.
The introduction of these new hours coincides with the requirement for all hospital visitors to show proof of vaccination before visiting a hospital.
All public hospital visitors will be expected to undertake screening and risk assessment before entry.
They will also be required to register their visit via ServiceWA, SafeWA or a manual register.
Additionally, visitors should help to keep patients safe by maintaining physical distancing where possible and maintaining good personal hygiene while on site.
As stated by Health Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson:
“The Chief Health Officer has introduced new important operational measures at our hospitals to ensure safe visitation during the spread of Omicron.
“Hospital visiting hours have been streamlined to assist our hardworking health workers with screening.
“The new hours also provide the public with consistency so that no matter which of our hospitals your loved one is in, you can easily know when you can visit them.
“Proof of vaccination is now a requirement for all public hospital visitors and the easiest way to provide this proof is by using the ServiceWA app.”
