Canterbury DHB is now limiting the numbers of people coming into our facilities

The key changes are: one person per patient for most areas and no children under 16 to visit patients. Visiting hours will remain the same for services (as publicised on our website for each service). Anyone who is sick should also not be coming to visit anyone in hospital.

This is part of our efforts to reduce the chances of COVID-19 or any other infection spreading to our vulnerable patients.

We are going through an extraordinary situation where we must examine our tikanga to enable us to care for those people who are in hospital in the best possible way.

We understand that this news may catch out people planning visits to our sites over the next few days, so we ask for your help in reinforcing these changes with your networks. An easy way to share the changes to your contacts on social media is to share the media release when it is posted on www.facebook.com/CanterburyHealthSystem

More detailed information for each site below.

Christchurch Hospital:
• Emergency Department – one support person only to accompany people presenting to ED
• Outpatient Appointments, including Bone Shop – one support person per patient.
• Neonatal Intensive Care (NICU) – parents only visiting.
• CHOC – (Child Haematology Oncology Centre) – no visitors and one parent to accompany/stay with each patient
• All remaining inpatient wards and services – no more than one visitor per patient at any one time.
• No children under 16 to come hospital visiting.
• Exceptions: Clinical Nurse Managers can assess requests on a case-by-case basis. For example, exceptions will be considered on compassionate grounds for end of life care.
• Visitors will not be allowed to visit any COVID-19 patients.
Christchurch Women’s Hospital/Rangiora Health Hub maternity/Lincoln Maternity/ Ashburton Maternity:
• One named support person per woman. Each woman will be asked to nominate one named individual who can visit for the duration of her stay.
• All visitors to our maternity facilities must sign in each time they visit.
Burwood Hospital
• No more than one visitor at any time per patient.
• One support person per outpatient.
Specialist Mental Health Services at Hillmorton campus
• No more than one visitor at any time per patient.
• One support person per outpatient.
Ashburton Hospital, Oxford Hospital, Darfield Hospital, Ellesmere Hospital, Waikari Hospital, Chatham Islands Health Centre, and Kaikōura Health (Te Hā o Te Ora):
• No more than one visitor at any time per patient.
• One support person per outpatient