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 Health System clocks up one million electronic referrals

Monday 20 February 2017Media release3 minutes to read

THIS IS AN ARCHIVED PAGE. The advice and information contained in this page may not be current and it should only be used for historical reference purposes.

Electronic referrals by Canterbury clinicians through the South Island's Electronic Request Management System (ERMS) have just passed the one million milestone.

ERMS provides easy to use, secure electronic referral forms for most services listed on HealthPathways, ensuring people in need of health services are connected to the right person as soon as possible. It makes sure a request gets a response, helps protect patient privacy through keeping communications secure, and cuts waste out of the system by saving patients' and clinicians' time.

Canterbury District Health Board chief executive David Meates says passing the one million mark in Canterbury is a remarkable and satisfying achievement.

“ERMS plays a fundamental part in our strategy of bringing care closer to home by making general practice people's first point of contact for health care,” Mr Meates says. ​

“ERMS was designed by clinicians, for clinicians, to prevent people getting lost in the system as happened all too often before ERMS was designed. A key feature that has led to its South Island-wide success is that requests can go to any part of the system, whether public or private, and incorporate community-based as well as hospital-based services.” 

ERMS was launched in Canterbury in 2009 and has since been rolled out in all five South Island DHBs, who together provide health care and support to more than a million people.

“This is an excellent example of collaboration across our Canterbury health system for the benefit of patients, and how working closely with other South Island DHBs can spread those benefits further and help still more people,” Mr Meates says.

“I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge Pegasus Health in particular, who were instrumental in the development of ERMS and continue to work with us and our South Island DHB partners on its ongoing evolution. Thanks too to our other Canterbury Primary Health Organisations; Rural Canterbury PHO and Christchurch PHO whose support has been crucial.”

Christchurch general practitioner and ERMS Chair Graham McGeoch thinks ERMS is a fantastic tool that improves the quality of care General Practice teams provide because it is fast and easy to use, and frees up more time for patients.

Dr McGeoch says using ERMS, he can often submit a request while the patient is still with him. ​

“The electronic form pre-populates with key patient information from the patient record, such as past medical history and medications,” he says.

“The referrer can easily add the key information such as test results needed by specialist services to manage the referral. This information then goes straight into the electronic record at the hospital and an appointment or service arranged with few delays.”

Dr McGeoch says better quality information provided in this way helps the specialist receiving the request to make an accurate assessment and to respond quickly.

“Sometimes ERMS triggers a phone call or written advice back to general practice which helps patients get the right care,” he says.​

“ERMS has really strengthened the link between community-based care and specialist services. It is one of those simple ideas that has become one of the best tools we have in ensuring we provide a timely, effective and consistently high standard of care.” 

ENDS

Tags

Back to Health News

Page last updated: 19 October 2022

Is this page useful?