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

Celo the safe-snapping app

Thursday 24 May 2018Media 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.
Celo works on mobile devices and computers.

Celo works on mobile devices and computers.

Medical staff can't just use Snapchat or WhatsApp when they want to send private information to another professional, so what can they do when they need to get a second opinion in a hurry?

An app for Canterbury health professionals lets medical staff confer or safely share a photo at the click of a button.

Christchurch Hospital Paediatrician Dr John Garrett says the Celo app has been invaluable for his work.

“I go to the Chatham Islands twice a year to see paediatric patients over there. One of my patients was also a patient in the plastic surgery service here.”

The patient's mother told John they were planning to fly to the Christchurch plastic surgery clinic for a follow-up appointment regarding a scar.

The trip would have been a considerable expense for Canterbury DHB.

“But more importantly, it involves three or four days of time off work for that parent, time off school for the child,” John says.

“So what I was able to do with Celo was take a picture of the scar, send it straight to the plastic surgeon he was going to see, and within five minutes have her let me know that the scar looked fine. He didn't need to come to his appointment in Christchurch.”

John says the app is also useful when he is on call.

Registrars can share images with him instead of describing conditions on the phone.

“And then we can make better decisions for that patient,” John says.

Celo is the preferred method of communication in the Paediatrics department, and John is looking forward to it being more widely used in the hospital.

Celo will also soon be used in the West Coast DHB, where clinicians regularly confer with Canterbury DHB staff.

While consumer apps such as WhatsApp allow encrypted image sharing, there are issues with using them in the health system.

Messages and images are stored on each phone and anyone who uses or steals the device can see them.

Celo behaves more like a mobile banking app, where nothing is stored on the device and nobody can access information without the user's unique PIN code.

All users on a Celo network are verified, so there is no chance of a user accidentally sending patient images to someone who doesn't work in healthcare.

Celo Chief Executive Stephen Vlok says the immediate mission is to educate staff on why Celo is important.

“Privacy is becoming more important and Celo offers an alternative to consumer-grade apps.”

There are seven other organisations in New Zealand using Celo, and Mr Vlok expects to announce more soon.

“Beyond Australia and New Zealand, we have targeted the United Kingdom, Europe, Canada, Singapore and the United States as markets for expansion.”

Celo has been developed in partnership with Canterbury DHB as part of the health board's focus on using technology to improve healthcare for patients and staff.

ENDS

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Page last updated: 19 October 2022

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