wondering if your clinic allow a child and companion inside the treatment area

[Chris]

YLGuy, to me that policy should be thrown out, either everyone is not allowed to visit or they are for 5 minutes. It should be fair for all.

[RichardMEL]

Actually I tend to agree. I know that seems harsh, but when you have one rule for one patient, or group of patients, and another for others, that's just asking for trouble. There definitely should be a fair rule for all.

My unit doesn't really have a rule about visitors, except that they're asked to leave the area when their patient is being taken on or off (reasonable). We have one woman who stays with her husband for his 4 hour sessions (her English is a lot better than his) others come and go. They are pretty relaxed about it.. but I think I would object if they suddenly said "OK that patients wife can stay, but these other guys can't" - that wouldn't be fair to me.

[Riki]

I wouldn't like it if visitors weren't allowed in..  Not many visitors come, but there are a few.  Since there are only 9 chairs in my unit, and we all pretty much know each other, when someone comes in to visit, they visit with everyone.  One girl, who's a bit younger than me, her mom will bring in the grandson to visit with us.  He's a little over a year old, and he grins and waves at us all.  Some bring their dogs in for short visits, and there have been kids in.  Since most who are there are older, their grandkids come in to visit.

My brother is a delivery driver, and once, he came to pick up a package that was going to one of the other centres in the province.  After he was finished with all the paperwork, the nurse he was talking to told him to come in and say hi to me.  He wasn't even there for me, but they let him come in anyway.

the unit in Manhattan was the same.  They didn't seem to mind that I had 3 people with me, even though 2 of them left to go get food for us.  As long as we weren't bothering other patients, which there really weren't many of.  A lot of the chairs were empty

I have to wonder, with the units that don't allow children under 14.  What if they were to have a patient under 14?  What would they do then?

[kitkatz]

I have had 2 visitors from IHd.com show up at my center.  Marc asked the guy "Where was his seat, he was ready for treatment," showing his DaVita bag to him.  Poor tech about swallowed his teeth.  We visited quietly for awhile.  Jean also came by to say hi. I think the center unnerved her a little bit.   I look like the pillow queen all set up in the bed I am in.

[gothiclovemonkey]

My old center allowed it SOMETIMES, depend on who was working lol, i think technically it wasnt allowed though.
My new center, the have "visting time" which is 15 mins of the treatment. Not very long, really. They let my son in, hes 6, he wanted to see what dialysis is. And they have made exceptions, for new patients, there is one lady that was very upset, ive seen her have someone there sit with her, and ive seen a few others have people sit with them outside of the visit time, I think the only reason they even have those rules is because of privacy, and also if they are taking patients off or putting them on, its a critical time, bad things can happen, and they wouldnt want to have a bunch of people running around during that time...

[RichardMEL]

yeah our unit asks visitors to leave when people are being taken on or off, but otherwise visitors can come in whenever and stay as long as they like - the crew are pretty good with that. We had one patient (sadly passed away a couple of weeks ago ) and his wife would sit with him for his entire 4 hour run, treatment after treatment. A very devoted and wonderful lady. In the end she knew the place and procedure so well she was helping with other patients, and got stuff when needed not just for her hubby, but for other guys there.. plus she was Greek but spoke good English, so she would often help to translate for other greek patients in the ward.

I can't think of a time when visitors haven't been allowed - unless of course there's some major drama or something going on.

[sbrown2459]

At my center they say no "children" may visit; they usually allow 1 visitor per patient. There are 18 stations (machine) in the unit and it gets pretty busy. They discourage cell phones and food but are not really strick about those items. You have to push a button on an intercom to ask to come in...if they are not ready for you they will ask you to sit in a waitting room (with a TV) and they will come and ask for you when they are ready.