An artist's impression of Southland Charity Hospital. Photo: Southland Charity Hospital
The Southland Charity Hospital is nearing completion, after a build that has stretched through the pandemic.
The hospital in Invercargill was the brainchild of the late Southland farmer and father-of-two Blair Vining, who died of bowel cancer in 2019 at the age of 39.
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.
The board of trustees chairperson, Murray Pfeiffer, said after being beset by delays and Covid-19, the building was almost there.
"The construction and the fitout are well advanced, are nearing completion, and I anticipate that we will be opening the doors for our first patients around the middle of the year," he said.
"The project is progressing, and in my view progressing well."
Dr Pfeiffer said the pandemic had made it tough, but opening a hospital in just three and a-half years would be a remarkable achievement.
Blair Vining who died of terminal bowel cancer in October 2019 campaigned for the Southland hospital. Photo: Facebook / Screenshot
Blair Vining was diagnosed with terminal bowel cancer in October 2018 and given just weeks to live.
He sought treatment privately after being told there would be an eight to ten-week wait through the public health system - a wait he would not have survived.
He lived for another year after that, and spent it campaigning for the charitable hospital in Southland, convinced that his region had inadequate cancer care compared with other parts of the country.
His widow, Melissa, has been driving the project since his death in October 2019.
Another of his legacies was the establishment of the independent Cancer Control Agency, Te Aho o Te Kahu, for which he organised a petition that gained 140,000 signatures.