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When someone you care about is in the hospital, it's hard to know what to do. You want to be supportive, but you also don't want to get in the way or tire someone out when they're sick. You might also be worried about carrying a germ into the hospital with you and making the sick person even sicker—or picking up a germ while you're there and carrying it home. Here are four tips on how to be a good hospital visitor.
1.) Call before you visit and find out if the patient wants visitors.
If the patient is feeling really sick, vomiting, or just wants to sleep, he or she may not want visitors. A phone call can be enough to let him or her know that you care, especially if you follow it up the next day (and the next, if necessary, for however long the hospital stay lasts).
2.) Offer to bring something small, but only if it's allowed.
If the patient isn't on a restricted diet, you can offer to bring something small that he or she will appreciate. A favorite type of coffee from Starbucks or a doughnut from a local bakery can be nice. Try to avoid the "traditional" hospital gifts of flowers and balloons because many hospitals have stopped allowing one or both. A lot of balloons are made of latex, which triggers dangerous allergies in some people. Flowers can also set off allergies, but they may also carry pesticides and germs that could make a person with a weakened immune system even sicker. Their fragrance can also sometimes set off nausea.
3.) Take safety precautions that will protect you and the patient.
Hospitals are where sick people go, so that means that you need to be careful not to contract something while you're there. You also want to keep from bringing any outside diseases in with you, because that could put your favorite patient and others at risk of harm. Take a few specific precautions:
When you come home, consider taking a shower immediately and throwing your clothes into the wash. While this might sound like it's an excessive action, consider this: 75,000 people die each year in the U.S. from infections they pick up while in the hospital for something else. It's estimated that 721,800 U.S. patients total picked up something during a hospital stay in 2011. There aren't any figures that indicate how many visitors pick up something while they're there—but the figures on patients should help you understand your risks.
4.) Stay for a short while and then go home.
Finally, the best visitors know when it's time to leave. If the patient is lively and talkative, you're probably good to stay until the nurse starts the next rounds. However, if the patient is trying to sleep or seems lethargic, express your love and concern and go home. Otherwise, the patient might expend precious energy trying to stay awake to talk to you, instead of resting and healing.
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