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Kids are welcome in some patient waiting areas of Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, but not all the time and not everywhere. Of course, when the child is the patient, they are always welcome. It’s when adults bring a child to their own appointment or a sibling to a child’s appointment, that there should be another responsible person who can watch over them.
Simply put, parents who come for procedures or testing at the hospital are encouraged to make sure children who accompany them are supervised.
Some areas, such as the Phlebotomy department in the LRMC Laboratory, have little problem with unsupervised children. Servicemembers working in the LRMC Lab say adults usually arrive in groups of two for patient visits.
Officers in charge of that department say when children are small enough to be in strollers, they are allowed to be wheeled with their parents to the respective areas for blood, urine or other bodily fluid samples.
Lt. Col. Angela Williamson says extra kids routinely cause problems in the Audiology and Speech Pathology Department, where she is officer in charge.
“It’s a huge problem for us because most of our tests require that the individual being tested is in a booth, isolated, for a period of time,” Colonel Williamson said. “In follow-up appointments, too, for parents or patients. When you are trying to explain what the tests showed, you need their full attention.”
Colonel Williamson served at Landstuhl for three years in the 1990s and has been back at LRMC on a new assignment for over a year now. The newly opened office space for the Audiology and Speech Pathology, in the opposite hallway from LRMC Patient Administration, is occupied by just three audiologists and one speech pathologist.
“We don’t have a big enough staff to watch extra kids,” Colonel Williamson said. “Our hearing testing is fine-tuned and necessitates the person being alone for 20 to 45 minutes. A two-year-old being tested will require a parent to be in the booth with them. Extra children who come along to the appointment need to be supervised by another person and our staff are not equipped to handle that.”
In the hospital’s Obstetrics and Gynecology department, a husband often will accompany a wife for scheduled appointments, said Lt. Col. Julie Pack, the deputy chief of the department.
“We are family-oriented care and we encourage other family members to come for obstetrics visits,” Colonel Pack said. “For gynecological appointments, when the husband is present there is not going to be a problem with unsupervised kids.”
In the hospital’s mammography department, females who submit to exams are asked to not bring children unless a second responsible family member can be present.
“We see one or two, and up to five situations per week where there are problems with kids,” said Sgt. Karen Atiles, NCOIC. “In a mammogram, there can be radiation exposure if someone is in the room with the patient. If a patient arrives with extra people who can’t be watched, we tell them they have to reschedule. They don’t like it, but that’s the way it has to be. Right now we don’t have the resources to provide any child sitters.”
