VISITING HOSPITAL

All hospital visitors are recommended to wear a medical face mask. Expand this message for information about visiting hospital.

Last updated:
13 March 2023

Some visitor restrictions for all Te Whatu Ora Waitaha Canterbury hospitals and health facilities remain in place, but we have relaxed others.

There is still a heightened risk to vulnerable people in hospital and so we recommend all people wear a mask when visiting any of our facilities and follow other advice designed to keep patients, staff and  visitors safe.

To keep everybody safe:

  • Visitors or support people must not visit our facilities if they are unwell. Do not visit if you have recently tested positive for COVID-19 and haven’t completed your isolation period.
  • Patients may have more than one visitor, except in some situations such as multi-bed rooms where it can cause overcrowding.
  • Surgical/medical masks are recommended to be worn at all sites. Masks will be provided if you don’t have one.
  • For Specialist Mental Health Services everyone is strongly encouraged to wear a face mask in all inpatient areas and areas where consumers are receiving care (i.e. community appointments, home-visits, transporting people). Discretion may be applied in cases where masks impair your ability to communicate effectively.
  • Visitors must not eat or drink in multibed rooms because of the increased risk when multiple people remove their face mask in the same space.
  • Hand sanitiser is available and must be used.

Thank you in advance for your patience and understanding as our staff work hard to protect and care for some of the most vulnerable in our community.

Visiting patients with COVID-19

  • People can visit patients who have COVID-19 but they must wear an N95 mask – this will be provided if you don’t have one.
  • Other methods of communication will be facilitated e.g. phone, Facetime, Zoom, WhatsApp etc where visits aren’t possible.

All of our Hospitals

Visiting hours for our hospitals have returned to pre COVID-19 hours with the exception of Christchurch Women’s Hospital.

All visitors are recommended to wear a medical face mask.

Parents/caregivers are able to be with their child in hospital and visitors are now allowed, except for the Children’s Haematology and Oncology Day stay where just one parent/caregiver is able to attend their appointment with their child. Exceptions by special arrangement only.

Patients and visitors can also read the additional COVID-19 related visiting guidelines .

Requests for official information

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​​​​People in New Zealand can request government information (official information) and can expect it to be made available unless there is a good reason to withhold it.

The Official Information Act 1982 (or OIA) enables citizens, permanent residents, visitors to New Zealand, and body corporates registered or with a place of business in New Zealand, to make a request for official information held by government agencies, including Te Whatu Ora.

To make an Official Information Act request

District Health Boards were disestablished as legal entities on 1 July 2022 and Te Whatu Ora – Health New Zealand was established as a legal entity under the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act 2022.

Accordingly, Te Whatu Ora | Waitaha Canterbury and Te Whatu Ora | Te Tai o Poutini West Coast have replaced the Canterbury DHB (CDHB) and West Coast DHB (WCDHB).

Te Whatu Ora / Health New Zealand has moved to a centralised Official Information Act (OIA) request system for all OIA requests made to any part of Te Whatu Ora.

Please send your request via email to hnzOIA@health.govt.nz; or post your request to:

Official Information Act request
Te Whatu Ora / Health New Zealand,
PO Box 793,
Wellington 6140

When sending an OIA, please identify clearly that your OIA request is specific to Waitaha Canterbury or Te Tai o Poutini West Coast.

You can find out more about how to make an OIA request on www.tewhatuora.govt.nz 

Te Whatu Ora official information responses

For all Te Whatu Ora OIA responses that have been proactively released since 1st of January 2023, please visit the national Te Whatu ora website.

Waitaha Canterbury official information response archive

You can read hundreds of Canterbury DHB responses for official information dating between 2018-2022 in our Document Library.

Some popular official information topics are:

Page last updated: 25 October 2023

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