In an effort to protect patients, East Georgia Regional Medical Center is restricting visitors during the recent flu epidemic.
Children should stay home unless they are seeking medical care, and patients may have only two visitors at a time, according to a statement released Friday by hospital authorities.
“We’ve just seen a major increase in the flu,” said East Georgia CEO Bob Bigley. “We have had some patients with the flu who developed pneumonia” and the visitation restrictions are precautions against patients in the hospital for other reasons contracting influenza on top of their other health concerns.
The statement released Friday read, in part “With the country seeing one of the strongest flu seasons and our community seeing an increase in flu cases, East Georgia Regional Medical Center has decided to take extra precautions to prevent the spread of flu and protect our patients, visitors and coworkers.”
Hospital authorities ask those visiting patients to keep children home, and especially not bring them to visit those in the intensive care, cardiac care, labor and delivery, postpartum and pediatric units.
Children, like the elderly or those with weakened immune systems, are not only at increased risk for contracting the flu, but since they are exposed to large groups of people at school, they may be more susceptible to carry the flu virus, Bigley said.
Other restrictions for visitation include limiting patients’ visitors to two at a time. Visitors are asked to wash hands upon arrival and departure, and to stay home if they have any indication of coming down with the flu.
 Flu symptoms include chills and fever, cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, muscle or body aches, fatigue, nausea, diarrhea, vomiting and headaches.
People coming to the emergency room for treatment are asked to bring only one support person.
Almost every state in the country is reporting a flu epidemic, according to the Center for Disease Control. Bigley said the Statesboro area hospital has seen a constant flow of patients with the flu or flulike symptoms.
“We’re not overflowing at this point, but we’re very, very busy,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of admissions due to the flu and complications from the flu.”
Other hospitals, including Savannah’s St. Joseph’s Candler hospital, are imposing similar visitation restrictions to help combat the spread of the flu virus, he said.

Holli Deal Bragg maybe reached at (912) 489-9414.