Building work started today on a new small-animal veterinary hospital for Cornwall in Falmouth.
The new development will replace Rosemullion Veterinary Hospital's current site with a more spacious and expansive facility that aims to offer county-wide services.
The site of the new development is on Bickland Water Road, next to Millers garage.
The new hospital site next to Bickland Water Road
Helena Wilkes, clinical director at Rosemullion Vets said: "This means a lot to us. It's something we have been working on for nearly ten years.
"We’ve had a lot of difficulty getting the right site in the right location, but we’re really happy with what we’re doing now.
"The practice has grown significantly over the last few years and it’s become very difficult in recent years to cope with the demand. We have modified our existing building as much as we can but we still need more space to be able to see as many animals as we need to.
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"We need more consulting rooms and particularly more operating space, as well as increasing the services we can offer."
Helena Wilkes, clinical director at Rosemullion Vets
The new hospital will have a CT scanner, a piece of equipment only currently offered by one other facility in Cornwall. Rosemullion Vets have some highly skilled staff in areas such as surgery, ophthalmology and exotics, so they take referrals from practices all over Cornwall for these services.
Building work started today
They are aiming to expand their areas of expertise so that they can offer a high level of care for people all over Cornwall, reducing the need for them to travel outside of the county for complex cases.
The new hospital will also have a dedicated out-of-hours service provider, with a team of vets and nurses who will be awake and onsite in the hospital throughout the night to look after inpatients and to handle emergencies that arise at any time.
Rosemullion Veterinary Hospital at its current site
Rosemullion as a practice has been in existence since the 1890s. It was started by Col. Smythe as a one man practice working from a pony and trap looking after several of the local farms. The practise now has branches in Helston and Penryn as well as the hospital in Falmouth, with a total of 17 vets and a total team of just over 60 staff. They will be looking to expand this further as they move to the new premises.
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