Press release from Park Ridge Health:
Due to a sharp increase in influenza-like illnesses being reported by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, Park Ridge Health has implemented visitor restrictions.
To protect patients, visitors, providers and staff, the following restrictions are in place at Park Ridge Health.
– No hospital visitors under the age of 18 permitted.
– Visitors are limited to immediate family and clergy only.
– The number of visitors is limited to one or two at a time, unless special circumstances are presented.
– No hospital visitors with cough or other flu symptoms permitted.
“Park Ridge Health is taking this step to ensure the safety of our patients and the staff who is dedicated to caring for them,” said Jimm Bunch, Park Ridge Health President & CEO. “We have already seen the impact of the whooping cough outbreak on our communities and now the influenza rates are reaching a point where visitor restrictions are in the best interest of our patients, their families, and our care team.”
In December, Park Ridge Health implemented visitor restrictions due to the increase in confirmed cases of Pertussis (whooping cough).
The visitor restrictions will remain in place until the elevated risk for exposure to the either of these illnesses returns to normal levels. Thank you for your cooperation.
For up-to-date information on the flu, please visit flu.nc
If you have symptoms of the flu, please contact your physician immediately, or call 855.PRH.LIFE (855.774.5433) to schedule an appointment with a Park Ridge Health Physician.
We know tobacco smoke or e-cigarette emissions have toxins that weaken immunity and resistance to respiratory system infections while hand-mouth contact is the riskiest behavior for the spread of flu, meaning that smoking cigarettes and vaping e-cigarettes are influenza disease vectors. Companies can keep their employees healthy by immediately and permanently closing designated smoking areas on their property, including parking lots and personal vehicles. Employers have written rules against wearing cologne, perfume or other allergenic fragrances yet they appease nicotine addicts by allowing them to vape or smoke outside at work then bring secondhand smoke and e-cigarette environmental emissions into the office in their hair and clothes. When they open the door to enter the building clouds of tobacco smoke and e-cigarette fumes, both containing nicotine, from designated smoking areas also enters. Those designated smoking areas must be eliminated and smoking banned everywhere at the workplace at all times. The priority now is to protect clean air breathers who heeded public service announcements, costing hundreds of millions of dollars over the past half century, admonishing us not to smoke, from smokers and vapers who ignored the warnings and did it anyway; assault them on a daily basis with secondhand smoke and e-cigarette environmental emissions; then hike the cost of our healthcare by needing treatment for the totally preventable diseases caused by their nicotine addiction. States and cities must make it illegal to possess and use tobacco smoking materials and e-cigarettes, due to the toxic emissions and fire dangers from both, in ALL multi-unit housing, not just public housing under the jurisdictions of HUD, colleges, universities and schools, plus ban smoking and vaping everywhere in public at all times, including bus stops, transit centers, train stations and airports. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson MD must immediately implement and strictly enforce the HUD ban on smoking in public housing.
View this: the 2018 influenza disease outbreak in the U.S. first became wide spread in Louisiana, Oklahoma, Georgia, Massachusetts, Virginia and Arkansas between the weeks ending November 18 to December 2, and 6 of those 7 states are among the 12 that have the highest rates of smoking in the country, known as Tobacco Nation.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/usmap.htm
https://www.cdc.gov/statesystem/cigaretteuseadult.html
https://www.truthinitiative.org/tobacconation
Thank you for sharing this very important information. Perhaps we will do an article about it in the future.
You’re welcome Susan.