Hospital visiting guidelines updated 20 July 2022: Hospital visitors must wear a surgical/medical paper mask. Fabric face coverings are no longer acceptable. See our COVID-19 pages for detailed information about hospital visiting guidelines, COVID-19 tests and care in the community advice. See www.vaccinatecanterburywestcoast.nz for information about vaccinations.
We are at ORANGE according to the NZ COVID-19 Protection Framework
Last updated:
9th April 2022
We have therefore tightened visitor restrictions for all Te Whatu Ora Waitaha Canterbury hospitals and health facilities.
Kia whakahaumaru te whānau, me ngā iwi katoa – this is to keep everybody safe:
By sticking to the rules above, you help keep our patients, staff, other visitors and yourself safe. We 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.
Exceptions to the ‘one visitor’ policy
Visiting patients with COVID-19
You must NOT visit the hospital if you
Exceptions for people with disabilities
An exception will be made for people with disabilities who are in hospital or have to attend an outpatient appointment – where they need a support person to access health services. For example, a sign language interpreter, support person for someone with a learning disability, or someone to assist with mobility. The support person is in addition to the one permitted visitor.
Everyone visiting our facilities must wear a mask, no exceptions
While we appreciate that some people have legitimate reasons for being exempt from wearing a mask and may even have an official card to confirm this, people who cannot or will not wear a mask cannot visit someone in hospital or attend hospital, other than to access healthcare. This is another measure to minimise the risk to vulnerable patients.
Patients and visitors should also read the additional more detailed visiting guidelines for each specific hospital.
More COVID-19 information
Microbiology - Bacteriology
TB
TB susceptibility
NGS Next Gen Sequencing
WGS Whole Genome Sequencing
2 weeks
Isolates on solid media or liquid (MGIT) broth.
Isolates on solid media or liquid (MGIT) broth.
Dangerous Goods Regulations apply
Isolates are pre-processed using cell lysis and nucleic acid purification procedures.
Library preparation is performed using Illumina DNA library kits and NGS is performed on MiSeq (Illumina).
NGS read data (fastq files) are quality checked and then analysed using reference based mapping programs to generate variant calls.
Variants in regions of interest are then compared to data-bases and WHO catalogue of mutations.
Phenotypic susceptibility testing is also performed as not all resistance mechanism/mutations are understood.
Option: All data can be made available via file share service if NGS only required without bioinformatic analysis.
Consultation: All antimicrobial resistance strains are reviewed by a Microbiologist.
Contact Canterbury Health Laboratories on +64 3 364 0484 or email LabInfo@cdhb.health.nz