WHCG management announced the visitation restrictions on Tuesday, September 28, following the Department of Health directions.

There will be only six reasons a person can visit a patient at the Wimmera hospital, including as a parent, guardian, or carer of a child who is a patient at the hospital or as an interpreter or language support provider.

Partners of patients in the maternity ward, visitors to an end-of-life, palliative patient and a carer for a patient with a disability are allowed to visit the hospital too.

Finally, people are also allowed to visit to learn about after-care for a patient upon discharge.

Staff at Wimmera Health Care Group can organise FaceTime phone calls; people can contact the appropriate ward to arrange this with staff.

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Some cases may be exempt; if this is the case, people are asked to contact the nurse unit manager of the ward where their loved one is in care.

When they present their case, people are asked to be respectful to the manager as these restrictions have been put in place to protect the community.

Wimmera Health Care Group Infection Control Coordinator Rachel Baker said the restrictions are in place to protect the patients, team members and community in general.

"Cases are growing in all areas in the regions and in Melbourne so we need to be on alert at all times and make sure it's not entering our hospitals," she said.

"The main reason we have done this is to protect our patients, they are in a vulnerable state, and they need to be protected, as do our team members who are working in that environment.

"By protecting our patients we are keeping it out of community as well."

Ms Baker said this also protects their staff so they can continue to do their work.

"Our team members are specialised and they are great at what they do but we don't have an abundance of them therefore we need to be protecting them so they can continue to care for the community," she said.

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