HOSPITAL VISITING

Hospital visiting guidelines updated 16 September 2022: Hospital visitors must wear a surgical/medical paper mask. Fabric face coverings are not acceptable.  See our COVID-19 page for general COVID-19 advice, detailed hospital visiting guidelines and COVID-19 tests.

See www.vaccinatecanterburywestcoast.nz for info on vaccinations.

Last updated:
16 September 2022

Fewer visitor restrictions now apply

For visitors to all facilities effective from 16 September 2022

Some visitor restrictions for all Te Whatu Ora Te Tai o Poutini West Coast health facilities remain in place, but we have relaxed others.

There is still a heightened risk to vulnerable people in hospital and so people must continue to wear a mask when visiting any of our facilities and follow other advice designed to keep patients, staff and other visitors safe.

Kia whakahaumaru te whānau, me ngā iwi katoa – this is 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 in single rooms may have more than one visitor while patients in multi-bed rooms can have one visitor only per patient to ensure there is no overcrowding.
  • People can have one or two support people to accompany them to outpatients appointments.
  • Women in labour in a birthing suite, in Te Nīkau Hospital’s Maternity Ward and in Buller’s Kawatiri Maternity Unit can have the usual support people, subject to space, for the duration of their stay in our facilities.
  • Eating or drinking at the bedside is at the discretion of the Clinical Nurse Manager. Visitors must not eat or drink in multibed rooms because of the increased risk when multiple people remove their 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.

Mask wearing

  • Surgical/medical masks must be worn at all sites, except in counselling, mental health and addiction services where it’s on a case-by-case agreement with patients. Masks will be provided if you don’t have one. In higher-risk environments, people, including young children, may not be able to visit if they cannot wear a mask.
  • Any member of the public with a mask exemption is welcome in all our facilities when attending to receive health care and *treatment. Please show your mask exemption card and appointment letter to staff at the entrance. *Treatment includes coming into the Emergency Department, outpatient appointments, surgery or a procedure.

Visiting patients with COVID-19

  • People are able to 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.

You must NOT visit our facilities if you

  • are COVID-19 positive
  • are unwell. Please stay home if you have a tummy bug or cold or flu/COVID-19-like symptoms (even if you’ve tested negative for COVID-19).

Te Whatu Ora West Coast Aged Residential Care facilities

Visitors are welcome at our Aged Care Residential facilities, subject to the space available. All visitors must wear a surgical mask.

More COVID-19 information

Contact Form

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This enquiry form is not for…

1. Medical emergencies

If you require urgent medical treatment please see After Hours and Emergency information, or if you have an urgent hospital related enquiry, please contact the hospital concerned.

2. OIA Requests

To make an official information request go to our requests for official information page.

For enquiries from media

You can use the form below for enquiries from media, but before doing so please also read the info on our on-call media advisor roster page.

How to reach Te Whatu Ora Health NZ West Coast via email:

For enquires best answered by the friendly Te Nīkau Health Centre team, please check out the section in the area titled: Te Nīkau Health Centre enquiries (above)

Email addresses to contact Te Whatu Ora West Coast for enquiries have largely been replaced by this simple form.  Note, that in order to receive an emailed response from Te Whatu Ora West Coast simply provide your email address before submitting the completed form. 

Some health services can be contacted directly by telephone and email address rather than by using this form, Te Whatu Ora West Coast health services are listed on hospital pages and in the health services directory on this website.

Please don’t use this form for submitting Official Information Act requests to Te Whatu Ora, as these are now being submitted via a different website.  For more information see our requests for official information page.

You can use the online contact form located further down on the present page to make the following types of enquiry:

  1. Hospital, health facility or health services, also see our hospitals pages
  2. General enquiries about Te Whatu Ora Health NZ West Coast.
  3. Employment / recruitment at Te Whatu Ora Health NZ West Coast, also see our Te Whatu Ora Health NZ West Coast Careers website
  4. Facilities development/building projects.
  5. A media enquiry, also see our Guide for the media page
  6. Reporting a website problem.

We want to know what we are doing well and where we can improve. Patients, family/whānau and visitors can send us suggestions, compliments or complaints using this form.

For more information about patient rights and the Health and Disability Commission Advocacy Service, see the Tell us what you think, Supporting you and During your visit pages, in our patients and visitors section.

Send us an enquiry or feedback

When you see a * it means that it must be completed. Other fields are optional.

Page last updated: 22 May 2023

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