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 .

Commitment to renewable energy earns CDHB an environmental accolade

Wednesday 19 October 2016Media 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.

The Canterbury DHB has today (Wednesday 19, October) been awarded an Energy-Mark Bronze Award in an official ceremony for its commitment to energy management, by New Zealand's leading environmental certification authority, Enviro-Mark Solutions.

The setting for the short award ceremony was Burwood Hospital's new boiler house – a state-of-the-art energy facility that runs on environmentally friendly wood waste.

Presenting the award, Enviro-Mark CEO Ann Smith said the Canterbury DHB, like any healthcare organisation, has the significant challenge to provide a reliable and constant energy source for a variety of essential medical services, along with maintenance services for the general health and well-being of its patients and staff.

“Achieving Energy-Mark Bronze certification is a great step towards real performance improvements that will mean Canterbury DHB will develop and a robust and efficient energy management system – reducing their impacts on the environment and their people,” Ms Smith said.

Accepting the Energy-Mark award, Canterbury DHB CEO David Meates said energy supply and reliability is crucial to all services at the Canterbury DHB, and a huge amount of work goes on behind the scenes to ensure that we supply and consume energy in our facilities as efficiently as possible.

“I am absolutely delighted we are able to demonstrate responsible energy management as an organisation, and I am proud to accept this Energy-Mark award – especially on behalf of our Canterbury DHB energy team, who have a vast amount of experience in a very technical field,” Mr Meates said.

“The next step for Canterbury DHB is to build on our achievement in the future through meeting the requirements for Energy-Mark Silver certification, and then finally Energy-Mark Gold.”

The new boiler house saves an estimated 6,000 tonnes CO2 emissions per year compared with using coal* to provide the newly-expanded hospital with heating and hot water. It's also virtually smokeless: emissions to air are controlled via cyclones for the larger particles and a large electrostatic precipitator that captures and removes PM10 particles. Warm air is also recirculated within the facility to help dry the stored wood.

Enviro-Mark Solutions, which runs the Energy-Mark programme, is a subsidiary of Landcare Research, a New Zealand Government Crown Research Institute. To achieve Energy-Mark Bronze certification, an organisation has to demonstrate significant commitment to achieving performance improvements, including the implementation of an energy management system, objectives and targets, and the consideration of energy performance in long-term planning.

ENDS

Photos available on request: contact Daniel Park, Canterbury DHB Communications, 022 411 5095.​

*Figures obtained from the EECA online calculator.

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Page last updated: 19 October 2022

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