Mater Dei Hospital visiting hours will revert back to normal from Monday for the first time since the pandemic hit in 2020.

This means that as from Monday, patients will be allowed visitors between 11.30am to 1pm and between 3pm and 8pm.

Despite the visiting hours finally reverting to pre-pandemic times, the hospital will continue to enforce rules on the number of visitors allowed by a patient. According to a health ministry spokesperson, only one visitor per patient will be allowed "in order to reduce the footfall inside the hospital".

The ministry did not say whether this rule will be lifted anytime soon. Before COVID-19, patients were allowed between two and three visitors at one go, although that rule had been loosely followed and patients would often be allowed to have more by their side.

The ministry spokesperson also confirmed patients under 70 will once again be allowed to have someone accompany them at emergency and the outpatients department. In the past two years, only the elderly over the age of 70 and people requiring special assistance were allowed to have someone with them. All other patients had to wait as well as receive any treatment by themselves.

Masks to stay

As already announced by the health authorities, mask-wearing in hospital settings will continue to be enforced, and anyone visiting the hospital must don a mask.

The spokesperson did not say whether this rule will be dropped in the future.

When the pandemic hit in March 2020, Mater Dei was the first to introduce strict measures in an attempt to control the spread of COVID-19. Within days of the first few cases being detected, the hospital descaled its normal operations and postponed all non-urgent surgeries.

Patients had also been urged to not visit the hospital unless absolutely necessary.

By April that year, all visits to the hospital had been stopped. These resumed a few weeks later but were reduced in order to avoid too many people on wards.