Visitor guidelines

We ask all visitors to follow these guidelines. They help protect your friends and relatives who are patients in our hospital.

Please keep in mind:

• Permission
  Ask your relative or friend’s permission before you visit. Many patients love visitors, but some just don't feel up to it.
   
• Length of visit
  Stay for a short time. It's the fact that you visit, not the length of time you stay, that gives your relative or friend a boost. Staying too long may tire them out. It's great to visit often but stay for no more than a half an hour or so each time.
   
• Hygiene
  Wash your hands and use the alcohol gel before you touch or hand the patient something. If you wash your hands and then touch a mobile phone, the TV remote control, the bed linen or your jacket, wash your hands again. Infections come from almost any source, and germs can survive on surfaces for days. Tell a member of staff if you notice the alcohol gel dispensers are empty or not working. This will help protect your relative or friend.
   
• Mobile phones
  Turn off your mobile phone, or at least put it on silent when you are in the hospital. Mobile phones may interfere with hospital equipment, which may put patients at risk.
   
• Privacy
  A patient's treatment or conversation with their medical team is private and confidential. You should leave the room if a member of the team arrives to talk to or examine your relative or friend unless you are asked to stay. You can return once this interaction has finished.
   
• Gifts
  Ask the nurse in charge if there are any rules about bringing flowers or gifts as some items may not be allowed.

Please remember:

• No smoking
  There is no safe level of secondhand smoke. To protect our patients, staff, volunteers and visitors, smoking is not allowed in the hospital or on its grounds. This includes e-cigarettes.
   
• Don't visit when you are sick
  Visitors should not enter the hospital with any symptoms that could be contagious. This includes a cough, runny nose, rash or diarrhoea. Instead of visiting, make a phone call or send a card.
   
• Children
  Children can only visit if the nurse in charge gives permission and if they are under the supervision of an adult.
   
• Don't bring food in for the patient
  Patients should only eat food supplied by the Mater Hospital Catering Services Department so please do not bring food.
   
• Hygiene
  Do not touch the patient's wounds or the medical equipment they are attached to, as this can cause infections. Don't use patient toilets. Ask the nurse where the nearest public toilets are. Please use the chairs provided rather than sitting on the patient's bed, as this can spread germs. 
   
• Recording devices
  Photography or the use of recording devices is not permitted without consent from the Hospital. This includes photographs or videos taken on mobile phones and/or wireless devices or the use of any recording device.