Less than 18 months after Blair and Melissa Vining announced plans for a Southland Charity Hospital, the builders are ready to start on site.

Invercargill firm Barry Stewart Builders will begin stripping out the former Clifton Club Inn next week. 

It will be a special milestone for the project, created after Blair was diagnosed with terminal bowel cancer in late 2018. 

He was told he had just six weeks to live, but wouldn't be able to see an oncologist within that timeframe due to Southland waitlists.

The Southland couple began a landmark campaign to improve cancer treatment in New Zealand, and end the postcode lottery that sees people the level of care and diagnosis determined by where you live.

Blair's petition to create a national cancer agency was signed by more than 140,000 New Zealanders. 

And to address their home region's issues, the couple established the Southland Charity Hospital Trust, a month before father-of-three Blair died in October 2019, aged just 39.

Since then, more than $1.7 million has been raised to make the charity hospital a reality. 

It will offer colonoscopies to people in Southland and Otago who don't meet the Southern District Health Board's tight criteria for diagnostic treatment and can't afford to go private.  

Hospital manager Helen Robinson says donations continue to pour in. 

"Every single week we get contact from someone in Southland or Otago about fundraising. 

"It really varies, sometimes it's individuals doing what they can, shaving their heads maybe, then there are also the big events." 

They've included huge spectacles like the Pack the Park game, which saw the Blair Vining Invitational XV beat the ITM Invitational XV in Invercargill, marking the anniversary of Blair's death. 

Former All Blacks took to the field, while Sir Graham Henry coached the Blair Vining Invitational XV and boxer Joseph Parker ran the water for the opposition.

The Trust's own buy-a-brick campaign sold 9,000 bricks at $100 each. They'll be engraved and laid at the hospital.

"It's been incredible and doesn't seem to be slowing - that's just the kindness and generosity of the people in Southland and Otago." 

But there's a long road ahead and much fundraising to be done before the day clinic opens to patients. 

Robinson says it's difficult to estimate how much the build will cost. 

"It's a hard one to quantify. If we went out to tender, the project itself would be $4.1 million, but because of the offers of volunteer trades and gifted materials and that kind of thing, that's come down quite significantly.

"We're edging on the side of caution and keep that figure in mind as the absolute max we would need."

The hospital will feature an operating theatre, a five-bed recovery ward, consultant rooms, a multipurpose community room, kitchens, a memorial garden for Blair and other facilities. 

That means the old building, which was kindly donated, needs a huge upgrade, including extensions, electrics, a UPS (uninterrupted power supply) system, and a steel cage to build the sterile operating theatre within. 

The building project is estimated to take 12-14 months. 

And then there's the equipment, which could cost up to $1.1 million. 

"There's a two-page list of what needs to go in - everything from the operating table and light pendants, to recovery beds," Robinson says. 

"But, again, we've had lots of generous offers and good deals from medical companies and establishments. Southern Cross, for example, they replaced their beds which were only a couple of years old, so they've kindly donated five of the recovery beds to us." 

Southern Cross has also donated a number of procedures to the Trust, which means its work to help Southlanders, who suffer the highest rates of colorectal cancer in the country but undergo the lowest number of colonoscopies, has already begun. 

Four procedures have been completed so far, with another two going through the pathway. 

So far, about 40 medical professionals, including consultants, nursing staff and theatre staff, have pledged to volunteer at the facility once it's open. 

It will also need some paid nursing and admin staff. It's likely to cost about $250k a year to run.

Robinson says: "It's a very caring profession, people want to help, and as with all volunteering, they want to give something back to the community." 

She visited the Christchurch Charity Hospital, on which the Southland one is modelled. 

"The staff told me it's very different because they get to meet the people, spend time with them, hear their stories. "  

The facility will start slowly and gradually build capacity, with a committee assessing whether there is the need to offer other procedures, including dental care, in the future.  

"We'd be aiming for a couple of days surgery every week to begin with. It might be that some weeks we're busier than others. We've had surgeons in Wellington say they'll come and do a week for us. 

"Other weeks we might be quite quiet. It will fluctuate quite considerably." 

It will cater for people who can't get procedures funded through the DHB, under 50s for example are not considered a high risk group, but can't afford it themselves. 

A colonoscopy itself costs around $1,500 self-funded, but with the various tests, consultant fees along the way, the process can cost up to $5k.  

"A big portion of the population can't access that kind of money easily. Those are the people we're helping. 

"People can be experiencing really traumatic symptoms, but can't get the test."