Madison's St. Mary's Hospital is immediately suspending its 170 student volunteers after five experienced flu -like symptoms, though none had volunteered while contagious, according to Volunteer Coordinator JoAnne Johnson.
The suspension includes 90 college and 80 high school students, and follows UW Hospital's similar suspension of 350 student volunteers on Friday, though UW Hospital officials had not reported any H1N1 among its volunteers.
Both hospitals were likely reacting to the mounting number of infections on UW-Madison's campus. On Tuesday, University Health Services announced 543 people reported ""flu-like"" symptoms between September 1 and 12.
""We figure this is really kind of the beginning,"" Johnson said. ""With the volume [of volunteers] we had, we felt that our patients were our priority and that it was important ... to err more on the side of caution.""
Approximately 600 people volunteer at St. Mary's and contribute about 1,700 hours per week, Johnson said, with about 450 of those coming from students.
St. Mary's Registered Nurse and UW grad student John Blabaum said he didn't know the suspension details but disagreed with ""blanket suspensions"" for all student volunteers.
""I also think it would be unfair to suspend student volunteers but not the student employees,"" Blabaum said.
Meritor Hospital is not suspending volunteers at this tiMarketing Director Sue Brockman
Meritor Hospital in Madison is not planning to suspend its student volunteers, according to Marketing Director Sue Brockman.
""We believe that everyone should be treated the same whether they're an employee or a volunteer, so if they're not feeling well they should stay home. If they're diagnosed with H1N1 they would follow the same procedures as employees but at this point we are not suspending volunteers,"" Brockman said.
