Family and visitor presence policy restored at Sunnybrook!
I am so happy to be able to say that at Sunnybrook, we have returned to the family and visitor presence policy we had prior to COVID-19.
During the pandemic new restrictions of various kinds were put in place. We are now back to:
parents (or a baby's two family caregivers) decide who may visit their baby (no limit on number of visitors except for medical reasons - this aspect restored this month)
children under the age of 5 may be in the NICU baby's room (restored this month)
parent's NICU fobs open the doors to the NICU and to their baby's room (for a long time this was deactivated so they had to buzz in and be screened for COVID before they could enter the NICU).
Excluding young children and limiting the number of family and visitors who could be present at one time caused very difficult separation and barriers for families to be with their baby. It also took away a really empowering family-centred practice we had, which supported parents to be parents and decide who could visit, ensure visitors were symptom-free and performed proper hand hygiene, and to help other children in the family bond with their baby sibling.
Our whole NICU team has been advocating for this change and I'm thrilled it has happened!