Advice & support

Te Roopu Taurima O Waikato

Te Roopu Taurima O Waikato is a voluntary support group made up of Health Waikato staff employed in various departments on the Waikato Hospital campus, who have come together to complement the existing services in meeting the cultural needs of clients and staff.

Contact can be made with the group my telephoning the switchboard operators at Waikato Hospital, phone (07) 839 8899, or dial 0 from within the hospital. Ask the operator to contact the Te Roopu group by pager.

Maori Patient Service

Maori Patient Services have Kaitiaki or Maori Patient Advocates that work in some of the wards at Waikato Hospital.

The Kaitiaki offer:

cultural support and advocacy for patients and their whanau ensuring the rights of patients are being upheld
can relay concerns that patients and whanau have about their care to other hospital staff so that such issues can be addressed
can link patients and whanau into other hospital services and can assist / support them while they are in hospital.

Hours of work

8.30am - 5pm

Contact details

Women's and Children's Wards
Kaitiaki ext: 4891

Wards in surgical area
Kaitiaki ext: 4837

Wards in medical area and emergency department
Kaitiaki ext: 6854

National Travel Assistance Scheme

Want to get your hospital travel dollars back?

What is the scheme?

The National Travel Assistance Scheme was set up to help people who travel a long way to get to specialist appointments, get some of their travel expenses back.

To be eligible for the reimbursement, you must be referred from one specialist to another and travel a minimum distance or make a minimum number of trips. Both specialists must also be part of a publicly funded health and disability support service.

If this sounds like your situation, read on to find out if you meet the criteria to get some of your travel expense back through the National Travel Assistance Scheme.

Adult	Child (up to 18 years)	Babies up to four weeks old
Have you: been referred to an appointment by a publicly funded specialist (not a GP)?	Has your child (up to 18 years): been referred to an appointment by a publicly funded specialist (not a GP)?	The criteria below apply to babies who are up to 28 days old or until the baby is first discharged from hospital – whichever is later. Babies upon discharge from hospital need to meet the same criteria as that set out for children (up to 18 years).
AND	AND
Do you: have a community services card and travel at least 80km one way? AND/OR; visit a specialist at least six times in six months and travel at least 50km one way? AND/OR; visit a specialist 22 times or more in two months, regardless of distance? AND/OR; travel more than 350km one way for one specialist appointment?	Does your child: have a Community Services Card and travel at least 25km one way? AND/OR; visit a specialist at least six times in six months and travel at least 25km one way? AND/OR; visit a specialist 22 times or more in two months, regardless of distance? AND/OR; travel more than 80km one way for one specialist appointment?	Are you: a parent/support person of a baby who is expected to be in hospital for over six days following the parent’s discharge from hospital, and do you need to travel over 25km one-way from your home address to the hospital, OR a parent/support person of a baby who is expected to be in hospital for over 22 days, OR a parent/support person of a baby who lives over 80km (one-way) from their home to the hospital. As a parent/support person of a baby, you may qualify for travel assistance for up to two return visits a day if you live less than 100km away (one-way) from the hospital.

Can I claim for accommodation?

If you are eligible and your accommodation is approved by your specialist, you will be able to claim for some assistance, for example, payment towards costs of a motel room, or an allowance when staying with friends and family.

(Note: Accommodation is not usually approved for travel less than 100km away.)

Can I claim for the costs of a support person?

Under certain circumstances, you may also be eligible for assistance towards a support person’s costs, for example, if your specialist recommends a support person to assist you with clinical decision-making, or to provide physical support.

When a child is eligible for travel and accommodation assistance, they are always eligible for assistance towards a support person’s costs.

How do I claim?

Clinic staff will help you register for travel assistance and complete your first claim form.

Make sure your claim form is signed and stamped by clinic staff for each appointment you attend.

You must keep receipts for public transport and/or accommodation to support your claim.

Ministry of Health

The National Travel Assistance Scheme is funded according to the National Travel Assistance Policy document, effective from 1 January 2006. It is published and will be amended from time to time by the Ministry of Health.
Full terms and conditions are available from http://www.moh.govt.nz/travelassistance

For more information about claiming travel assistance, please contact:

Ministry of Health
National Travel Assistance
PO Box 1026
Wellington
0800 281 222 (press 2)

The Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers' Rights

The Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers’ Rights 1996 specifies patients’ rights when receiving healthcare services. These are:

Right 1 Right to be treated with respect
Right 2 Right to freedom from discrimination, coercion, harassment and exploitation
Right 3 Right to dignity and independence
Right 4 Right to services of an appropriate standard
Right 5 Right to effective communication
Right 6 Right to be fully informed
Right 7 Right to make an informed choice and give informed consent
Right 8 Right to support
Right 9 Rights in respect of teaching or research
Right 10 Right to complain

Brochures outlining these rights are held in all Waikato DHB clinical areas.

Further information may be obtained on the Health and Disability Commissioner website

Chaplaincy

The chaplains are part of the Waikato Hospital team working for the health and spiritual welfare of patients and relatives.

They visit wards regularly, but if at any time you would like to see a chaplain, please ask a staff member to call one for you.

The chaplains work together and are available for anyone.

Holy Communion

If you want Communion brought to your bedside, please ask a staff member to contact a chaplain.

Ministers of all religions can be contacted through the enquiry office (ext. 98688) or the switchboard (dial 0). If unavailable, contact the “on call” hospital chaplain.

To find out more about the chaplains and the services they offer, visit the chaplains web page.

Return of body tissue

If you are coming into hospital to have an operation that involves the removal of body tissue, it is possible to have this tissue returned on request.

Please discuss this with the doctor or nurse / midwife responsible for your care before your operation.

Please note that tissue is only stored for 14 days after testing is complete. In an emergency situation, tissue will be stored until you or your family / caregiver make a decision about having it returned.

Social workers

Social workers assist with any social problem(s) that will impact upon the ongoing care or discharge planning of a client. This could involve information, support, assistance and coordination around emotional and practical issues, legal issues, family and relationship issues, social circumstances, family violence issues, and discharge planning. Please ask the ward staff to contact a social worker.

Accessing your clinical record

Nobody has the right to immediate access to his or her personal information.

Section 7.7 of the Waikato DHB Privacy Policy sets out the process for accessing your clinical record. For a copy of this policy, please contact Trisha Baird, Policy Coordinator (07) 839 8726 ext 5012. Alternatively, check out our policy online here under "Privacy".

ACC treatment injury

If you have a treatment injury while receiving healthcare from Waikato DHB’s clinical services:

If the treatment injury is recognised by Waikato DHB staff, those staff are responsible for completing the ACC 2152 and ACC 45 forms and sending these to the Quality and Risk Service for forwarding to ACC

If the treatment injury is recognised later by you or your GP, your GP is responsible for completing the ACC 2152 and ACC45 forms and sending these to ACC. ACC will then request information from Waikato DHB to confirm the circumstances of the treatment injury.

For further information please visit the ACC website

Medication safety

Patients, families, and whānau can help the hospital staff to maximise the benefits and minimise the risks associated with medicines by:

bringing a written list of your current medications to hospital with you to show to the doctor when you are admitted
telling staff about any allergy you may have to a particular medicine
asking questions about your medications if you are uncertain about anything.

Patient falls

Hospitals are a high risk environment for patient falls. Some of these falls are preventable and others are not. Falls occur in hospitals for a variety of reasons:

the patient’s illness or medicines may make them light-headed or confused
wearing socks on lino is unsafe
eyesight may be poor
an unfamiliar environment especially if the patient gets up in the night and the lighting is low.

Health professionals work in partnership with patients, families and whānau to provide a safe environment for patients and plan appropriate care for individuals.

Read more on reducing patient falls.

Accessing your health information

If you are or have been a patient/client of Waikato DHB you have a right to ask for and be given access to your personal health information. This will generally be provided as photocopies of your medical records.

If you wish to obtain your medical records, please fill in the form:

Request for copy of patient’s clinical notes

The form has various sections:

individual patient request for copy of own clinical notes
parent/guardian request for copy of child(ren’s) clinical notes
representative request for copy of patient’s clinical notes.

If your request is for information from a deceased person’s clinical notes then fill in the form:

Personal representative authorisation to release a copy of a deceased person’s clinical notes

If you require confirmation of attendance at Waikato Hospital fill in the form:

Request for confirmation of attendance at Waikato Hospital

The more specific you are about the information you want (e.g. notes from a particular admission in hospital or test results ), the quicker we can respond to your request.

We require some form of identification so we can be sure that we are sending it to the correct person. A copy of your drivers license, birth certificate or similar is required. Requests received electronically still need to provide some form of identification. The email address is info@waikatodhb.govt.nz.

If you prefer to send us a letter, please be sure to include the following:

your full name (and any other names you have been known by)
your date of birth
your National Health Index (NHI) number if known
the information you are requesting
contact details in case we need to query anything
proof of identity
anything else that may assist us to deal with your request.

Correspondence should be sent to the hospital Medical Records Department where you obtained your treatment e.g.

Medical Records, Waikato Hospital, Private Bag 3200 Hamilton
Medical Records, Thames Hospital, P.O. Box 707, Thames
Medical Records, Taumarunui Hospital Private Bag 1002, Taumarunui
Medical Records, Te Kuiti Hospital, Private Bag, Te Kuiti
Medical Records, Tokoroa Hospital, Private Bag, Tokoroa.

We have 20 working days to indicate to you if we will action your request. We can refuse your request, but only for very limited reasons which we would explain at the time.

In most cases we should be able to provide you with the information within 20 working days. If your request is urgent please state the reasons why the request is urgent and we will do our best to assist.

Sometimes we may contact you if there is a lot of information available to ensure that we supply what you need. Where there is a lot of information to be provided we may not be able to supply it all within the 20 working days – but we will certainly inform you that we are dealing with your request.

There is no charge for the provision of this information.

Correcting information

If you think that the information we hold is inaccurate, you are entitled to ask for it to be corrected.

Apart from simple factual information (such as your name, date of birth, ethnicity) you may be invited to provide a statement of the correction sought. This statement will be attached to your file.

Accessing another person’s health information

If you wish to access another person’s medical records, we will require that person’s consent before we can release their information to you. Please note that the request form includes a place for the patient's signature to indicate that we are authorised to disclose the information to you. In certain limited circumstances, we may be able to release medical records to a third party without the patient’s consent.

For more information contact our privacy officer.

Infection Control

Infection Control is for everyone!

The Waikato District Health Board takes infection control very seriously. Infection Control is for everyone and is everyone’s responsibility to ensure adherence to Infection Control we have robust policies, procedures and campaigns – Hand Hygiene; all aimed to reduce the risk of patients contracting infections, including multidrug resistant organisms (MDROs) e.g. MRSA while they are in one of our hospitals.

Waikato DHB has a dedicated Infection Control team consisting of a doctor (chair of the Infection Control Committee), a clinical nurse manager, four clinical nurse specialists and a hand hygiene project manager who covers Waikato site, our rural hospitals, long term care facilities and community sites and services.

The Infection Control team work hard to assist wards and departments with management of patients with known MDROs to reduce the risk of cross infection between patients.

Further information:

Information leaflet on MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus)
ESBL (Extended Spectrum Beta-Lactamase)
VRE (Vancomycin-resistant enterococcus)