NSW Health has been updating the advice for residential aged care facilities recently with updated advice received today. We are pleased to report that visitation can be a little more relaxed with not so many restrictions. However, we do plead with you to continue take appropriate precautions. You have all been fantastic so far in helping us restrict outbreaks at Merton Court to just the one instance to date. Let’s keep it that way!

So, here is the current advice and visitation procedure that Merton Court will implement:

Visits should be conducted in a manner that minimises the risk of introducing and spreading COVID-19 infection into the RACF, including:

• ensuring visitors do not have symptoms of COVID-19, have not been in close contact with a person who has COVID-19, or have tested positive to COVID-19 in the last 7 days (see Entry restrictions below) Please continue to follow our screening procedure and check in using Coolgard.
• where possible, visits should be held outdoors or in well-ventilated areas away from other residents
• care should be taken to avoid crowding within the facility This means that more than 2 people may visit a resident each day.
• visitors to wear masks when visiting Merton Court to help protect those most vulnerable; however, masks can be removed for example, while communicating with another person who is deaf or hard of hearing
• all visitors should be encouraged to maintain physical distancing of 1.5m, particularly in communal areas. This means you may participate in activities with your loved one, but should stay with your loved one and minimise exposure to other residents.
• We do encourage visitors to continue to book in for visits as we have found this helpful in ensuring they are ready and raring to go, or not in the middle of an activity or on one of our outings. This is no doubt also helpful for visitors, especially if they have come from afar.

Entry restrictions

Merton Court will ask visitors entering the facility if they have:

• undertaken and received a negative result from a COVID-19 RAT on the same day that they attend the care facility.
• been in close contact with someone who has COVID-19
• any symptoms of COVID-19 (other than symptoms caused by a known health condition or medication).

Visitors must not enter Merton Court if they have:

• Tested positive for COVID-19. Visitors should not enter Merton Court for at least 7 days after their positive test, unless authorised by Merton Court for compassionate reasons.
• Been in close contact with someone who has COVID-19. They should follow the advice in the Advice for people exposed to COVID-19 fact sheet and should avoid visiting Merton Court for at least 7 days.
• Any COVID-19 symptoms or are waiting for a COVID-19 test result.

If a visitor meets the any of the above criteria and a visit must occur, a negative rapid antigen test is undertaken before entry, and the visitor wears a mask whilst in the facility.

Emergency service providers are not considered visitors.

Vaccination

For the best protection against severe illness it is important to be up to date for all vaccinations including COVID-19 and influenza.

Please forward this to other family members whose email address I do not have, or any other friends who you know would like to visit. If there are other family members who do not receive email updates from me and would like to, please provide my contact details and I can add them to the group email.

Thank you again for all your support in these COVID years.