Paris, TN – After more than two years, staff, patients, and visitors at Henry County Medical Center and its Medical Clinics no longer have to wear masks.
As of Wednesday, May 25, masking is now optional in these facilities. This new policy DOES NOT apply to Henry County Healthcare Center, which is bound by CMS regulatory guidelines related to masking and COVID-19.
The masking optional policy is based on currently available information about COVID-19 and the current situation in the United States, which includes community transmission rate, infections identified in healthcare personnel (HCP) and volume of cases within the surrounding community.
Patients and visitors may choose to wear their own face covering in the facility. Masks are optional for patient care providers except in the case when a patient is actively on respiratory or droplet (contact) isolation, are being ruled out for COVID-19, significantly immunocompromised, or per the request of the patient.
HCMC continues to recommend masking for those individuals unvaccinated or partially vaccinated while in the facility. Individuals that have fever or respiratory symptoms will be asked to remain at home, perform a COVID-19 test, and if positive stay home until day six. Individuals must also have improving symptoms and remain fever free for 24 hours without the use of fever reducing medications.
At Henry County Medical Center, officials said, “we will continue to follow the science and take the steps necessary to protect our patients, especially the most vulnerable.”
**HCMC reserves the right to re-institute mandatory masking at any time based on the status of community COVID transmission, new community outbreaks or recommendations by nationally recognized regulatory agencies.**
For more information, go online at www.hcmc-tn.org.