'Stay at home': Hospital's vital message to people ignoring coronavirus advice
Healthcare workers and young patients have shared a vital message urging people to stay home amid the coronavirus pandemic.
In one photo posted on the The Children’s Hospital at Westmead Facebook page, a young patient holds a sign that reads ‘stay home for me’.
In another, an exhausted looking healthcare worker wearing protective clothing holds a sign that reads ‘I stay at work for you. You stay home for me’.
Several more photos of other staff working at the hospital join them, holding signs with the same message.
“It’s a simple message but it's one our Hospital and Sydney Children's Hospital, Randwick need you to hear,” a spokesperson for the hospital wrote on Facebook.
“Every day, our healthcare staff are putting themselves on the frontline to help us. But there is one thing you can do to help them – stay home.”
Coronavirus cases spiked in NSW over the weekend to 1,617 confirmed cases, four of them being children under ten.
While the virus doesn’t discriminate, it’s believed those with compromised immune systems are particularly at risk of contracting the illness that attacks the respiratory system and the staff at the Children’s Hospital are desperate to protect their young patients.
The “I stay at work for you. You stay at home for me” campaign has become a trending theme on social media among healthcare workers and emergency service workers as many people choose to ignore the social distancing guidelines announced by Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
In an effort to slow the spread of the virus, the hospital has also introduced strict new guidelines for visitors.
Patients should only be visited by one person at a time and is restricted to a patient’s parent, carer, guardian or a nominated person.
Siblings are no longer allowed to visit patients, with the hospital acknowledging how challenging that can be to explain to young children.
On Friday, Mr Morrison announced a mandatory 14-day hotel stay quarantine for all people flying into Australian airports from midnight on Saturday.
NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian also cautioned that if COVID-19 cases from community-to-community transmission continue to rise, a comprehensive lockdown would be needed for the state.
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