Your questions answered

You are welcome to bring any belongings with you, but please be aware that they may be monitored for radioactive contamination before you leave. It may occasionally be necessary for us to retain any radioactive belongings. This usually only affects your clothing. We will wash any contaminated clothing after your treatment before returning them to you. For this reason please bring a complete set of clothes, including underwear and footwear, with you, for you to return home in. Please note we use a thorough hot machine wash followed by a tumble dry to do this and we wash all items together, so please do not wear anything that you would prefer not to have washed in this way whilst you are in hospital.

Items that are useful to bring into hospital include snacks and drinks, books/magazines (unlikely to be retained, but don’t bring library books) and a mobile phone or other electronic device (we will cover this in cling film so it will not be retained).

• No visitors for the first 24 hours after the iodine capsule. Then one visitor at a time for no more than one hour. The visitor must keep their distance from you.

• All visitors must report to the Onslow Ward desk.

• Visitors are not able to eat or drink in the room or take anything from the room. They may bring things in for you if desired.

• Pregnant women and children under 18 years old are not able to visit.

This will vary upon each individual and depends on how quickly the Iodine-131 leaves your body. We will do measurements daily to work this out and we will let you know as soon as possible. 

You will be given some instructions to follow when you get home but you won’t need to isolate from people, just keep your distance to one metre.

You can follow the same instructions as we give for humans for your pets if you prefer to. However, there is no legal requirement for you to keep your distance.