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SPECIAL TO THE DEMOCRAT

NATCHEZ — Merit Health Natchez is asking for the community’s help in maintaining the safety of patients, visitors and our healthcare team members. When in the hospital for treatment, the best interest of our patients is to minimize unnecessary exposure to infectious or communicable diseases.

If you have traveled from a high-risk area for COVID-19, have had contact with a person known to be infected with COVID-19, and cough, fever or difficulty breathing, patients should tell staff immediately and visitors should delay your visit unless seeking medical care.

Effective today (Friday, March 13), we have implemented the following entrance and visitor restrictions:

• There will only be two open entrances to the hospital, the main lobby entrance and the Emergency Department. All other entrances will be locked.
• Only healthy, essential visitors such as immediate family, partner or significant other ages 18 and older may visit patients.
• Please limit visitors to one per patient.
• ICU and Telemetry now have closed visitation with set visiting hours, 10:00 a.m. – 11 a.m.

and 5 p.m. – 6 p.m.

• Only parents of babies are allowed in the nursery.
• Only one visitor allowed per patient throughout stay in the areas of Labor and Delivery and the Emergency Department and they must be 18 years and older.
• Patients in isolation will have additional visitor restrictions.

If you would like to drop off a card, gift or message of encouragement, we are happy to deliver those to patients. You may also call a patient’s room or visit patients using Facetime or another video communication app.

We appreciate the community’s understanding and compliance.

About Merit Health Natchez Merit Health Natchez is a Joint Commission-accredited hospital with 179-beds and offers a broad range of services including emergency medicine, surgery, cardiology, labor and delivery, radiology, outpatient diagnostic testing, physical therapy and more. Merit Health Natchez holds additional accreditations from American College of Cardiology for Chest Pain Center, the American College of Radiology for mammography, the American Association of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Rehabilitation, the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and Advance Disease-Specific Care Certification for Acute Stroke Ready Hospital from The Joint

Commission and the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association. Learn more at www.merithealthnatchez.com.