Bluewater Health is keeping its mandatory mask policy in place despite rules being lifted in most remaining settings across the province this weekend, hospital officials say.
Hospitals across Ontario had the option of lifting mandates but most of them, including many across Southwestern Ontario, said they will keep them in place. The group overseeing the hospitals in Sarnia and Petrolia issued a statement Friday saying it was doing the same.
“Bluewater Health, alongside many other hospitals in the region, will continue to uphold its current masking policy until further notice,” the statement said.
Mask rules began to ease in March but were still mandatory in most health-care and high-risk settings until Saturday. Masks will still be required in Ontario long-term care homes and retirement homes, a decision Dr. Kieran Moore, the province’s chief medical officer of health, has said is meant to protect the most vulnerable.