Wingham and Valley vets move into new veterinary hospital on site of old Bottom Pub

The occupation certificate was received late Friday afternoon, September 30. They moved out of their old premises on Combined Street and into the new hospital on the corner of Combined and Wynter streets overnight and were ready for business first thing the next morning.

"After moving in that Friday we had an extremely busy emergency on-call weekend with multiple snake bites, tick cases and patients requiring major life-saving surgery," Wingham and Valley Vets director, Dr Alissa Healy said.

"The new hospital allowed us to handle this high emergency caseload and multiple critically unwell patients.

"Although now feeling somewhat tired, we found ourselves feeling very gratified that the new hospital (with a lot of help from our fabulous vets and nurses!) is saving so many lives already."

The new hospital is on the site of the old Bottom Pub, which burnt down on July 5, 2010.

The buildings were designed to be modern, yet fit in with the heritage character the town of Wingham is known for.

Behind the hospital is a structure that is reminiscent of the old heritage stables that were pulled down after the fire destroyed the pub.

That structure is the practice's dedicated equine and farm animal hospital with two stables, foal box and equine stocks where equine dentistry, mare scans, lameness workups will occur, as well as hospitalising unwell large animals.

The finishing touches are being put on the equine hospital and it is hoped it will be open for business on Monday, October 16.

The new hospital has been designed not only for best practice veterinary medicine, but with patient comfort and wellbeing in mind.

A separate cat waiting room and consulting rooms, treatment room and cat hospital ward have been included to uphold "fear free" principles. The ward has piped oxygen, and the consulting rooms have continuous feline pheromones being used to help cats feel as comfortable as possible. It also allows the practice to achieve gold level cat-friendly accreditation.

For dogs, there are four consulting rooms, including a dedicated room for ophthalmology and ultrasounds, and a special visiting room with a couch, where you can spend some quality time with your pet in comforting surroundings during their hospital stay.

The kennel room has six large dog runs, an ICU area with CCTV monitoring and plumbed oxygen access for every dog run and cage for critically unwell and tick patients.

The hospital also includes:

And there is even a studio apartment to be used as student accommodation.

"Our state-of-the-art mixed animal hospital is the culmination of years of hoping and planning and we are incredibly grateful to everyone who helped us and supported us along the way to make our dream a reality," Alissa said.

An official opening day is planned for Sunday, November 19, with details being finalised.

"We will invite all the wonderful clients and the community who have supported us for so many years to come and see the new hospital, including a tour of the 'back of house' areas so you can see how we are caring for your beloved pets," Alissa said.

"So keep an eye out for an email or Facebook post from us announcing the date of our open day."

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can access our trusted content.