Over night family guests excluded for medical problems?

[Emergent, RN]

So, our facility is family/friend friendly, sometimes to a fault. We allow meth head boyfriends, etc and so forth, as long as there isn't a gender conflict in a shared room.

Recently,the ER doc requested that the very nice wife of a very nice patient, both elderly, be able to stay with patient at his request. It came out, somehow, that the wife had a certain medical problem. Otherwise do nothing house supervisor made a big to do and nixed the whole thing, forcing patient to find someone to take wife home.

Do we really have a right to be basing allowing guests to stay overnight on their medical status, if we happen to find out about it? What is our responsibility for the health and well being of patient overnight guests?

I wouldn't mind stricter visiting policies, personally, but in this era of more lax rules, where do we draw the line?

[nursecathi]

You'd have to check your hospital policy. I work inpatient hospice and there have been times when we've had an elderly pt and the kids drop mom or dad with Alzheimer's or non-ambulatory in a w/c off to stay with their spouse. We are not allowed to do hands on with the visitor. Not our patient.