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

Pressure eases at Christchurch Hospital Emergency Department

  1. Home
  2. Health news
  3. Pressure eases at Christchurch Hospital Emergency Department

Wednesday 6 March 2024Media release2 minutes to read

 

Pressure eases at Christchurch Hospital Emergency Department

Pressure eases at Christchurch Hospital Emergency Department

Please attribute comment to Jo Gibbs, Interim Group Director of Operations for Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora Canterbury

Pressure eases at Christchurch Hospital Emergency Department

Christchurch Hospital’s Emergency Department (ED) is calmer this morning following an extremely busy day yesterday and last night.

The total number of attendances from midnight Monday to midnight Tuesday was 357. What made yesterday and last night particularly challenging was the large number of very unwell patients all requiring care at the same time – at its peak there were 124 people in the department, it dropped to 107 between 9 and 10pm and 87 at midnight and that is still a large number of unwell people to be looked after. The usual number of patients at midnight is 40-60. 

As at 8.30am this morning there were 34 patients being looked after in the Emergency Department.

Last night the admission rate was 32% – which means almost a third of all people coming to ED were so sick that they needed to be admitted to hospital.  There was no particular cause or common reasons for admissions or the high acuity – the only trend yesterday and last night was that there were a lot of medical, rather than surgical admissions.

We’d like to thank everyone for their patience, as some people had to wait longer than we would like. Our admission rate has reduced slightly to 30% this morning, however the wider hospital is still very busy at 104% occupancy.

Despite the busyness, we are here for anyone who needs emergency care, and people shouldn’t hesitate to call 111 if it’s an emergency.

Special thanks to our staff who coped admirably with the unexpected high numbers of patients last night and thanks too to those who sought alternative care and health advice – there are a range of options available to people, and we are grateful when people choose well, and utilise one of the many options available after hours where this is appropriate and convenient for them.

ENDS

Tags

Back to Health News

Page last updated: 6 March 2024

Is this page useful?