Charity hospital may open in a few weeks

After almost five years, $6 million in donations and other acts of generosity from all over the country, the Southern Charity Hospital is "ready to go", its acting manager says.

Fiona Smith said the hospital’s code of compliance was signed off just before Christmas. The team was now working hard to have the facility clinically ready and have staff credentialed to receive their first patients.

"We’re probably locking in late February, early March [for the official opening], but the hospital is ready to go, so we are able to take patients now," she said.

"We are starting soon to look at patient referrals and getting staff credentialed . . . So, we’re in that process now."

Hospital clinical manager Andrew De Guzman said they had already secured a team made up of a surgeon and three nurses to start the work. However, they needed more.

"We are still looking for more volunteers, obviously. When we talked about it a while ago, it was 40 [volunteers needed] but the more the better, actually."

Mrs Smith said throughout the years they had had about 100 people offering to volunteer, from across the country.

However, she acknowledged the situation might have changed, as many professionals were under the pump.

"It’s a matter of now hunting out and reconnecting with them and refreshing their interest . . . and of course, the local guys are under a huge amount of pressure. They’re short-staffed in all spaces as well, so, we understand the limited ability for any of the medical professionals to volunteer.

"But it has been a very national response — for example there’s a wonderful crew of nurses up in the Hawke’s Bay who have got themselves in the credentialing process and said they would come down and make a bit of a trip of that. So, we’ve got people really kind of going out of their way to be involved."

She said interested people should get in touch as they could help with accommodation and transport.

The hospital in Invercargill was the brainchild of Blair Vining, who died of bowel cancer in 2019 at the age of 39. It featured a fully-equipped operating room, a dental suite, six recovery beds and other health facilities to provide a range of services.

It will initially provide colonoscopies, and later other services such as dentistry, for free to people in Otago and Southland who cannot afford private care and cannot afford the wait for public care.

Mr Guzman said the idea was to have eight colonoscopies in a day. However, they would start with just three or four to ensure the safety of both staff and patients.

"There’s no point in rushing. We need to make sure that it’s safe and so we’ll start slow and we’ll build — probably build quickly."

Mrs Smith agreed.

"What we would like is to have enough volunteers on our box, so we can do it every day," she said.

Both had been working hard to have everything ready and said they were excited to see people benefitting from the facility.

They could not describe the amount of generosity they witnessed through the whole process, Mrs Smith said.

"I would like to say thank you. I think it is almost impossible to think of the number of people that have got us to this stage.

"It’s in the thousands of people of hours and time and money. So, a huge, big shout-out to the southern region and to the country as a whole."