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 should also read the additional more detailed visiting guidelines for each specific hospital.

More COVID-19 information

Canterbury DHB wins international healthcare award

Tuesday 24 November 2020Media release3 minutes to read

Top row, from left: Emergency/Cardiology Research Scientist Joanna Young, Cardiologist Alison Nankivel, Ward 12 Charge Nurse Manager Margaret Cumming, Cardiologist Sally Aldous, Cardiologist John Lainchbury, Data Scientist John Pickering, Project Manager Alieke Dierckx. Front row, from left: Information Analyst Melanie Browne, Management Accountant Harue Akimoto, Consultant Physician Martin Than, Senior Research Nurse Felicity Turner, Consultant Physician Jacques Loubser, Canterbury Health Laboratories Patient and Client Service Manager Vanessa Buchan, Canterbury Health Laboratories Clinical Biochemist Professor Chris Florkowski

Canterbury health teams have been recognised in the prestigious international UNIVANTS of Healthcare Excellence Awards that recognise teams “who have achieved measurably better healthcare performance through unity and avant-garde thinking”.

UNIVANTS, which stands for ‘unity’ and ‘avant-garde’ is a healthcare industry award that annually recognises teams who collaborate across disciplines and transform healthcare delivery, and ultimately patient lives.

Canterbury DHB won the UNIVANTS of Healthcare Excellence 2020 Asia Pacific area award for a project called ‘Reducing Patient Risk and Enhancing Care through the Development and Implementation of a new chest pain pathway expedited by and for the COVID-19 era’.

There were 180 applications from 141 countries and the Canterbury project was unique in being the only application to receive seven stars of distinction from all judges.

The project included contributions from right across the Canterbury Health System including primary care and the Acute Demand Nursing Service; hospital and community laboratories; corporate services; researchers; and administration and clinical staff from the Cardiology and Emergency departments at Christchurch Hospital.

The project leaders were: Canterbury DHB Emergency Medicine Specialist Dr Martin Than, Emergency Department (ED) Specialist Dr Jacques Loubser, Associate Professor of the University of Otago John Pickering, Clinical Biochemist Chris Florkowski, and Cardiologist Dr Sally Aldous.

Dr Martin Than says the initiative was a rapid response to redesign Canterbury DHB’s processes for people who have suffered possible heart attacks being investigated at Christchurch Hospital.

“It was in response to the COVID-19 pandemic where we were trying to reduce admissions to hospital and reduce the amount of time people spend in ED, where they had the potential to pass on any infection.

“I’m very proud of the team for what they have done. But I am most proud of the collaborative history that sits behind the team that allowed us to make an effective, necessary and agile change,” says Dr Than.

Dr Jacques Loubser says for clinicians it is nice to be able to offer this service and do it confidently.

“It’s good for the hospital system too, the capacity that it opens up is massive, especially if we are expecting an influx of patients,” Dr Loubser says.

The judging organisations were: International Federation of Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine (IFCC), American Association for Clinical Chemistry (AACC), European Health Management Association (EHMA), Modern Healthcare, Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), National Association for Healthcare Quality (NAHQ), Institute of Health Economics (IHE).

A statement from UNIVANTS says: “It is with great honour that we congratulate all participating teams while celebrating strategic activation and insights from clinical and laboratory medicine to achieve measurably better outcomes for patients, payors, clinicians and health systems.”

You can view a video of the team speaking about their work here.

The full list of winners and projects is available here.

ENDS

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Page last updated: 24 November 2020

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