Children’s Hospital to clarify mask order
When Ada Martin’s son was rushed to Phoenix Children’s Hospital last month, she was stunned to find out the hospital did not appear to mandate face masks for visitors.
Martin, who has asthma, said a nurse was handing out face masks at the emergency room entrance, but they weren’t required. She saw visitors who weren’t wearing masks, and was worried for her own health and for her son’s health, too.
“I had been quarantining since March 13 and the last place I wanted to be was the hospital,” said Martin, whose son was hospitalized.
Officials with Phoenix Children’s “strongly encourage” face masks for visitors, according to what the hospital had posted on its COVID-19 page as of Friday. Nothing in the section on masks says they are required for visitors.
After The Arizona Republic asked about the policy Friday, Dr. Michael Ritchey, the chief medical officer for Phoenix Children’s, said the language on the website would be rewritten on Monday to make it clear that masks are required for visitors.
“I think something got lost in translation,” he said. “We are changing the language.”
The Phoenix Children’s rules posted as of Friday mandate all employees and providers wear masks in exam rooms and common areas. On its COVID-19 page, the hospital provides information on the benefits of masks for visitors, including the fact that the hospital serves thousands of patients every week and many of them have weak immune systems.
“It is believed that healthy kids are at low risk to be significantly affected by coronavirus,” the website says. “However, we treat thousands of medically fragile children who are at higher risk for the disease. We’re also protecting the parents, grandparents and health care workers at our hospital and clinics.”
Ritchey said the hospital has been issuing about 2,000 masks per day and has screening stations at all entrances checking for COVID-19 symptoms.
He said staff members do their best to explain to families the benefits of wearing masks. The hospital would never turn away a sick child because of a parent’s behavior.
Anyone who doesn’t come in wearing a mask is always given one, he said, though Martin said that’s not what she saw last month.
Though visitation to hospitals is extremely limited as the COVID-19 pandemic continues in Arizona, face masks are mandatory for those who do visit in at least eight major health systems and hospitals in Arizona — Mayo Clinic in Arizona, Abrazo Health, the Carondelet Health Network, HonorHealth, Dignity Health in Arizona, Tucson Medical Center, Banner Health and Valleywise Health, The Arizona Republic found.
Cloth face masks are recommended by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization and the Arizona Department of Health Services for anyone in a public setting where it’s difficult to maintain social distancing.
While face masks for the general public were not initially a recommendation during the COVID-19 pandemic, the thinking on wearing them has since evolved. The Department of Health Services began recommending individuals wear masks in public in early April after updated CDC guidance.
Because Martin has an underlying health condition, she remained outside the hospital while her husband and son went in.
Seeing visitors not wearing masks made her uncomfortable.
“My son got good care, but the lackadaisical policy on masks was unsettling given my own health concerns and the fact that I had a sick child in the hospital,” Martin said.
Martin’s son ended up spending a week in the hospital, including three days in the hospital’s ICU, and was diagnosed with Type One diabetes.
After her son was admitted, Martin did visit her son daily after the first night for a couple of hours because she was too worried to stay away. Her husband, who does not have underlying health conditions, remained with her son the entire time he was in the hospital.