Inpatient Visiting Guidelines

St. Jude staff members understand that love and support from family and friends are essential to helping your child adjust to being in the hospital. Even so, we need you to follow the hospital’s visiting guidelines to protect the health and the safety of your child and all St. Jude patients. The following is a shortened version of the visiting guidelines. For a more complete list, see the notebook you received during your first few days at St. Jude.

See "Do You Know...Visiting Guidelines."

• Parents or primary caregivers may stay with their children 24 hours a day, because they are not considered visitors.
  
• Many St. Jude patients have weak immune systems. Visitors should not enter the hospital if they are sick or have ben exposed to illnesses that are easy to spread (contagioius).
  
• Please follow all posted guidelines for using masks, gowns and gloves.
  
• Clean your hands each time you enter or leave a patient room.
  
• The number of parents and other visitors must be limited to three (3) for the Hematology-Oncology Inpatient Unit and two (2) in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), Stem Cell Transplant Unit and the Ambulatory Care Unit (ACU). The air cleaning system can do a better job when fewer people are in the room.
  
• Many patients make friends at St. Jude; however, for the health of each patient, inpatients should not visit other inpatient rooms. Also, outpatients should not visit the inpatient units.
  
• Only one (1) caregiver at a time may stay overnight in the inpatient room. This person can be a sibling, age 15 or older. Siblings younger than 15 may stay overnight in the parent room if the parent is present.
  
• For your child’s safety and your comfort, you may not sleep on the floor.
  
• Friends and family members 12 years old and older may visit your child. Please talk to your doctor or nurse if you think it is important for someone younger than 12 to be with your child. Before younger children can visit your child, they must be screened for illness.
  

Avoid live virus vaccines and people who have received one

Some vaccines are made from live viruses. Currently, these include oral polio, smallpox, MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella), and nasal flu vaccines.

These vaccines may pose a threat to your child’s health. Any person with a weakened immune system, including patients with cancer or HIV infection should not receive live virus vaccines.

Do not allow people to visit your child if:

• They have received oral polio or smallpox vaccines within 4 weeks;
  
• They have received the nasal flu vaccine within one (1) week; or
  
• They have rashes after receiving the chickenpox (varicella) vaccine or MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine.