Southland pub is transforming into a charity hospital

A Southland pub will be transformed into a charity hospital fulfilling the dream of patient advocate Blair Vining, who died last year from bowel cancer after being told to wait eight weeks for an urgent hospital appointment. Blair and his wife Melissa wanted to improve cancer care for Southlanders and fill the gaps not met by the Southern District Health Board's gastroenterology department. A generous donation by the Invercargill Licensing Trust of the Clifton Club Inn and the land it sits on, means the charity day hospital is a step closer to reality. Blair's wife Melissa told our Otago- Southland reporter Tim Brown that patients on waiting lists will be able to get colonoscopies quicker and that's exactly what her 38-year-old husband would have wanted.