Children’s Day Out – Child Health Wards Make The Move To Waipapa

It was children's day out today as our Child Health wards and services, now known collectively as ‘Matatiki’, moved into their new spaces in Waipapa.

The new Child Health spaces have been fully kitted out for their new arrivals, with a beautiful new patient playground, the Matatiki Hub, and new Activity Room. Parents will also be looking forward to the move with parent beds in each room.

Canterbury DHB’s Chief of Child Health Dr Clare Doocey says the new spaces in Waipapa are amazing and the move to the new facility is really going to benefit our young patients.

“The new spaces are light, bright and colourful. The atmosphere is completely different to our previous wards in Christchurch Hospital and will be very pleasant and calming for families staying with us.

“There has been an incredible amount of planning that has gone into the relocation of our wards. What makes it all worth it is the smiles on patients’ faces today as they were whisked away from the existing Christchurch Hospital to the brand new sparkling wards of Waipapa,” says Dr Doocey.

The move from the existing wards in Christchurch Hospital takes patients on a 8-10 minute journey, through the new ‘linkway’ and on to Waipapa.

Children's Acute Assessment was part of the Emergency Department move yesterday and patients and whānau are loving the new spaces.

Saying farewell to their old room in Ward 22, Riverside, was not a hard ask for Anna and her son, Cole, this morning.

Cole has spent nearly three of his eight months of life in the Children’s Wards of Christchurch Hospital, and while the staff have been unfailingly fantastic, the facilities haven’t.

“We’ve just come back from a couple of days at home, but before that we were here for ten days,” Anna said as she packed up her and Cole’s bits and pieces for the journey to Waipapa.

“It will be nice to move. It’s quite drafty and a bit rundown and dismal looking. So it will be really nice to get into the new one and have your own bathroom, things like that.”

Cole was one of seven patients to be moved from Ward 22 to Chidlren’s A7 in Waipapa this morning, either in beds, cots or pushchairs.

Upon arrival to her room in Children’s A7, the first thing Anna noticed was the view, closely followed by the room’s ensuite. A wander through the Ward and facilities had both Anna and Cole very impressed.

“This is just fantastic, so many amazing facilities. I’ve said ‘amazing’ so many times today.

“There are just so many thoughtful things that have been added in to make life a lot easier for some of us frequent fliers. It’s hard work sometimes when you have to balance everything. It’s going to make spending time here a lot more pleasant,” Anna said.

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