North Yorkshire equine hospital receives healthy £1m investment boost
An equine hospital in Malton, North Yorkshire, is set to undergo a £1m refurbishment programme.
Work is underway at Rainbow Equine Hospital to build a new purpose-built surgical and intensive care facility to house two new operating theatres.
As part of the hospital’s expansion over the next 12 months, the plans also include a dedicated isolation unit with stabling for six inpatients, a new reception building and offices for vets and administrative staff.
Rainbow Equine Hospital is staffed by specialists in equine soft-tissue and orthopaedic surgery, internal medicine, equine anesthesia and diagnostic imaging. It has stabling capacity for more than 50 equine inpatients.
This expansion project has been committed to by investment from York-based veterinary group VetPartners.
VetPartners, which was established in October 2015, completed the acquisition of Rainbow Equine Hospital just last month.
As a result of the expansion, the hospital is set to recruit additional vets, veterinary nurses and yard staff to handle the increase in patients.
The new operating theatres will increase the hospital’s surgical capacity and the building will be adjacent to its recently revamped CT suite, enabling pre and intra-operative CT to be utilised more effectively.
Jonathan Anderson, Rainbow Equine Hospital clinical director, said: “We are excited about the work because it will enable us to continue to develop our state-of-the-art equine surgical facility as well as giving us more working space to house horses, vets and administrative staff.
“It will mean an even more comfortable working environment with additional examination rooms and offices and, surgically, we can be more efficient.”
The current theatre will be changed into a dedicated ‘standing surgery’ suite, where patients can remain on their feet while undergoing surgical intervention for a range of conditions including kissing spines, distal limb fractures dental and sinus surgery and laparoscopy.
He added: “Presently only one surgeon can be in theatre at one time. We have to juggle elective and emergency procedures throughout the day. With the additional theatres, we can crack on with multiple surgeries at one time and be able to offer surgical referrals quickly and efficiently. Utilising CT both preoperatively and intraoperatively is very useful for fracture repair in particular.
“If a surgical emergency is admitted, elective procedures will not need to be delayed meaning the best and quickest of interventions can be performed. It is an exciting development and we are looking forward to its completion in early 2019.”
