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 .

Measles vaccines arrive in Canterbury

Wednesday 13 March 2019Media 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 new supply of vaccines has made its way into the fridges of Canterbury's general practices

General practices around Canterbury have had their vaccine supplies boosted today

Eighteen thousand doses of the MMR vaccine arrived in Canterbury this morning, and another 9,000 doses are expected to arrive tomorrow.

The Canterbury DHB is working with the Ministry of Health and PHARMAC on vaccine availability for priority groups.

Canterbury Medical Officer of Health, Dr Ramon Pink says general practice teams have already begun vaccinating those who need it most – that’s those most at risk of harm if they get measles.

“The immediate focus is children between the ages of 12 months and 13 years who have never been immunised,” says Dr Pink.

“GP teams are also focused on providing the vaccine to young adults aged 14 years to 28 years who have never been immunised.”

Dr Pink says children and young adults are our priority at this stage.

“Logistically general practice simply can’t vaccinate everyone at once. We need to take a systematic approach that targets those most in need. We’re focusing on unimmunised children and young adults first up, but over time we will expand access to more  groups.”

“We know that one dose of measles vaccine including MMR protects 95% of people against developing measles.”

The number of confirmed cases of measles in Canterbury now stands at 28 and is likely to rise further over the coming days and weeks. Seven of the 28 cases have been hospitalised and of these, two have been treated in ICU.

“Measles is a highly infectious virus that can be life threatening. Complications occur in about one in three people, and for them measles can be serious, even fatal.”

“Anyone with measles needs to be isolated from the time they become ill until 5 days after the rash has appeared.”

Dr Pink has thanked the Canterbury community for their response to the outbreak.

“People are taking this issue extremely seriously. I’d like to thank the increasing number of people who are staying isolated after being potentially exposed.”

The symptoms of measles symptoms are a cough or runny nose or conjunctivitis, and a fever above 38.5 C, and a rash.

If you think you may have been exposed to measles or have symptoms, please call your general practice first, 24/7. Calls made to general practices after hours will be answered by a nurse who will advise you what to do and where to go if you need to be seen

More information about measles is available at https://www.health.govt.nz/your-health/conditions-and-treatments/diseases-and-illnesses/measles and http://www.immune.org.nz.

ENDS

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Page last updated: 30 July 2020

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