Visitor ban on wards as Covid cases increase
A HEALTH board has closed three wards to visitors due to a surge of coronavirus cases in the area.
Cwm Taf Morgannwg University health board said rising numbers of Covid patients at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital meant three of the hospital’s wards have been temporarily shut to visitors.
The number of confirmed cases on the wards has risen in line with a surge of confirmed cases in the community, it added.
The Royal Glamorgan Hospital, in Llantrisant, stopped visiting hours on three of its wards on the same day the health board warned services were under “significant pressure” and rising rates of Covid in the area were “posing challenges for our teams”.
And last week, an A&E doctor in Cardiff’s University Hospital of Wales (UHW) described how he “cannot go on” following a brutal shift at Wales’ largest hospital. In an emotional outburst, Dr Farbod Babolhavaeji said: “Everything is at its limit. Everyone is working flat out. Every area is full to bursting.”
Meanwhile in the Aneurin Bevan University health board area on Wednesday, another doctor said hospital staff felt “demoralised” to see the virus filling wards and intensive care units again, especially the rising numbers of young unvaccinated people.
Yesterday, Public Health Wales confirmed 2,504 new positive cases in Wales, and five more people had died with coronavirus.
Infection rates in the Vale of Glamorgan are increasing almost daily now and currently stand at 405.7 per 100,000 population. In adjacent Bridgend, infection rates are higher at 420.3 per 100,000 population. The all-Wales infection rate is 468.6 per 100,000.
A spokesman for Cwm Taf Morgannwg University health board said: “As a result of the increasing Covid cases on our wards, just as we are seeing in our communities, we have had to temporarily close three wards at the Royal Glamorgan Hospital to visiting.
“It’s important that if you are displaying any Covid symptoms, or have tested positive, or are awaiting a test result, that you do not visit wards.”
Visiting in “exceptional circumstances” may still be possible but will need to be discussed with relevant ward managers, they added.