It’s been a dream six years in the making – but today, the Southern Charity Hospital will be officially opened in Invercargill.
It was the vision of Melissa Vining and her late husband Blair. The project started in 2018 following Blair’s diagnosis with aggressive bowel cancer and him speaking out about health inequity in the system.
Blair was told it would take 12 weeks to see an oncologist – but he had been given even less time to live.
Millions of dollars have been raised since for the hospital – which will cater for those struggling to access care through the public or private health systems.
In 2019, Blair told Breakfast it was something he hoped would look after his “friends, family and country”.
“At home, it’s the worst in the country. If we can fix that, it will lift the bar for everyone else.”
Blair died in October 2019. Today, his dream has come to fruition.
“I’m just so proud of our entire community and all the people from around New Zealand who have supported us to bring this to a reality. Now we can start helping people,” Melissa told Breakfast today.
Among the fundraising efforts, they started selling bricks during Covid lockdowns.
Melissa said among the most touching purchases were from people in Northland, who had the same struggle with the health system as down south.
“They’ve got the same challenges as us with access to healthcare and here they were buying bricks to support our fundraising project to build this hospital, even though they’ll never benefit from it.”
Melissa added in the weeks before Blair died, he said the hospital was on his “bucket list” because “the politicians weren’t going to fix it”.
“There have been some times that are really challenging. Turning a pub into a hospital is no easy feat. It definitely has taken a whole lot of work from a whole lot of people in our community and around New Zealand.”
