The Canterbury District Health Board temporarily closed the two hospitals, which have eight and 10 beds respectively, in March, alongside the Oxford and Waikari hospitals.
The closures were due to the Omicron outbreak putting pressure on staff resources.
While the health board said at the time it expected to re-open the four facilities within six weeks of the outbreak’s peak, that plan has now changed.
The board has set a date for only one of the hospitals to re-open, which is Oxford, in June.
Executive director of nursing Becky Hickmott said Canterbury was experiencing a longer tail for the outbreak than anticipated, as case numbers, hospitalisations and staff sickness and isolation levels remained high.
It still did not have a definite date for re-opening of Selwyn’s two hospitals in Darfield and Ellesmere.
This was dependent on the ongoing demands of the pandemic, alongside other pressures such as a nationwide shortage of nurses and other medical staff.
While not directly answering a question from the Selwyn Times last week as to whether the facilities were at risk of closing permanently, Hickmott said the health board wanted to discuss service delivery with the hospitals’ communities.
A working group comprising clinical and operational staff, together with community representation, would be convened to develop a proposal on a possible future model of care in these communities. The health board was aiming to share the proposal in four to six weeks’ time.
Selwyn district councillor Grant Miller urged the health board to reopen the hospitals in the meantime.
Both the Ellesmere and Darfield communities have had a longstanding fear their hospitals would close, as the buildings were older and have had little upgrading of their facilities in recent years.
As well as aged residential and respite care, they provided care for post-operative and end-of-life patients. His own mother had stayed at Ellesmere Hospital as she recovered from surgery.
“The service is extremely valued. The people who are (working) there are from the communities, so often they know the patients who are based there,” Miller said.
He said a future model of care could include something the district council could be involved in, similar to the new Selwyn Health Hub at Rolleston. The district council owns the hub, where the health board and other providers lease space.
“New services may not be on the existing site, but having the services retained is the key issue,” Miller said.
The Selwyn Health Hub’s maternity facility will soon open as services relocate to the site from Lincoln Maternity Hospital.
The Canterbury District Health Board will open Oromairaki on May 31, and expects to close the Lincoln hospital around the same time, depending on whether there any postnatal patients there.
The health board does not yet have an update on what will happen with the 1926 hospital building or land.
A spokesperson said decisions on that had been delayed due to the Covid-19 response.
The 5401m2 property contains the Lincoln Community Garden and a 2011 dental building which may be relocated to another CDHB site.
