Lenox Hill Hospital Updates Guidelines Making It NYC's Only Hospital to Allow Visitors 24/7

 by M.C. Millman

Since the dark days of COVID, when hospitals were closed completely to visitors, inroads to begin the steps toward opening them back up to visitors have been slow at best. 

Lenox Hill Hospital is the first New York City hospital to have adjusted hospital guidelines, allowing visitors at any day or time, including COVID patients.  The change takes effect Monday, January 16. More hospitals are expected to follow. 

"This policy change," Simon Schwartz, Community Relations Manager for Northwell Health, a parent organization of Lenox Hill Hospital, shares with BoroPark24, "was a result of the lobbying of numerous askanim and people inside the hospital, as well as health organizations outside the hospital. A major factor in allowing the guidelines to change was the assurance by advocates that visitors would adhere to the mask regulation policy. So, when anyone does visit someone in the hospital, please make sure to follow the guidelines to allow them to remain in place."

The change has been welcomed by askunim working to reopen all hospitals, including those who met a little over a week ago on Thursday, January 5, for the historical meeting called for by the Satmar Rebbetzin, and attended by the Williamsburg JCC, and other health organizations, as well as Dr. John Morley, the New York State Deputy Commissioner of Primary Care and Health Systems Management, and Sam Miller, Associate Commissioner for External Affairs. At long last, the wheels have begun to turn, resulting in a lifting of the out-of-date hospital visitor policies in one hospital with more to follow.