Star Story 1 - A team player
Our Star Stories celebrate the many ways our teams around the country have risen to the challenges of 2020.
During the COVID-19 lockdown, Southern Cross Christchurch Hospital continued to work closely with Canterbury District Health Board (CDHB); a strong working relationship galvanised over many years of working together through earthquakes, fires and floods.
The CDHB Pandemic Planning Team ran weekly Zoom meetings for all health providers in the region, including hospitals, laboratories, primary health organisations and community nurses, to identify needs and pressure points. The entire health sector in the region came together, working collaboratively, to supporting one another and ensure the best possible health outcomes for Cantabrians.
With increased demand for health equipment and problems sourcing it, Southern Cross Christchurch Hospital managed to remain open during the entire lockdown, even lending four sets of their monitoring equipment to Pegasus Health who were running the community based COVID testing centres.
When COVID-19 positive patients transferred from Rosewood Rest Home & Hospital to Burwood Hospital, Southern Cross Christchurch Hospital stepped in to complete some of the elective urgent and semi urgent orthopaedic procedures that had been originally scheduled at Burwood.
When another private hospital in the region closed during lockdown, Southern Cross Christchurch Hospital staff up skilled and fast-tracked surgeon credentialing, avoiding delays in brachytherapy procedures for prostate cancer. Brachytherapy prostate treatment involves radioactive seeds imported from America with a limited shelf life.
Between May and October this year, Southern Cross Christchurch Hospital completed around 100 additional surgeries each month so that by the end of October they had caught up on the backlog.
In this challenging year the team at Southern Cross Christchurch Hospital have certainly played their part in supporting the health and wellbeing of their fellow Cantabrians.