Masks: are they still mandatory in hospital?
On Sunday 30 June 2024, the obligation contained in the extension of the ordinance of the Ministry of Health of December 2023 which provided for the obligation to wear masks for workers, users and visitors of health facilities within the departments that host frail, elderly or immunosuppressed patients.
The deadline of the obligation remains even if there is a + 20% of infections, considered the beginning of a 2024 summer wave
The obligation was also extended to workers, users and visitors of social-health and social-welfare facilities, including hospitality and long-term care facilities, RSAs, hospices, rehabilitation facilities, residential facilities for the elderly, even not self-sufficient.
Who can order the use of masks in healthcare facilities?
It is no longer mandatory but only recommended by the health management. In this case, in other departments of health facilities and in waiting rooms, the decision on the use of respiratory protection devices against the Covid risk by health workers and visitors remains at the discretion of the Health Directorates, who can arrange for them also used for all those with respiratory symptoms.
Despite its spread, some people have never caught Covid.
Who is exempt from wearing a mask anyway?
- Children under the age of six;
- people with pathologies or disabilities incompatible with the use of the mask,
- people who need to communicate with a person with a disability and who cannot use the device.
