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

Contingency Planning at Canterbury and West Coast DHBs for the 9 June NZNO strike well underway

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Friday 28 May 2021Media 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.
Health News

Contingency Planning at Canterbury and West Coast DHBs for the 9 June NZNO strike is well underway

Having received an official strike notice in mid-May confirming that New Zealand Nurses’ Organisation nurses, midwives and healthcare assistants are planning to strike, Canterbury and West Coast DHBs are implementing contingency plans for the eight-hour strike period, from 11am to 7pm on Wednesday 9 June.

Acting Chief Executive for Canterbury and West Coast DHBs, Becky Hickmott says our number one consideration, as always, is patient safety, and acknowledges that NZNO also supports patient safety by providing Life Preserving Services (LPS) during the strike.

LPS, simply put, are the staffing levels and agreed essential tasks that ensure people in our care will be safe. LPS is on a voluntary basis, but because the union is responsible for providing LPS, staff that agree to cover LPS duties are enabling their NZNO colleagues to strike.

“Urgent and emergency care will remain available throughout the period of the planned strike. This includes the Emergency Department, acute surgery, all intensive care units, cancer care and the Renal Dialysis unit.

“111 calls will be responded to as usual and people should access urgent and emergency care as they normally would, but expect things to be busy,” says Ms Hickmott.

“There are close to 5000 nurses, midwives and healthcare assistants at Canterbury and West Coast DHBs who may strike, so the strikes are expected to cause significant disruption to non-urgent services in both regions.

“We apologise in advance for the disruption this planned industrial action will cause but we respect NZNO members’ right to take industrial action and acknowledge that these key staff have a valued role as part of our health system,” Ms Hickmott says.

“We are putting a number of measures in place to ensure we can continue to provide urgent and emergency care during the strikes. Our contingency plans are about rescheduling what isn’t urgent and reducing the demand on the staff who will be working on those days.

“As we have had more notice than usual of this strike, we have made far fewer surgery and outpatient appointments, and so there is less to change. We are in the process of rescheduling any that had been made on an individual basis to ensure that there is sufficient capacity to continue to provide emergency care during the strikes.

“Urgent procedures and surgery such as cancer surgery will be prioritised during the planned strike period on a case-by-case basis.

“Our aim is to ensure those working during that period are available to care for patients with high and complex needs, as well as those needing emergency care,” Ms Hickmott says.

Useful numbers for contacting the appropriate service on the West Coast can be found here:

https://www.wcdhb.health.nz/your-health/find-and-enrol-at-a-health-center/

Switchboard numbers for individual Canterbury Hospital sites can be found here:

http://www.cdhb.health.nz/Hospitals-Services/hospitals/Pages/default.aspx

ENDS

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Page last updated: 19 August 2021

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