New specialist eye clinic Eye Surgery Hastings to open next month

MCL Construction's Phil Mitchell (left), Dr Sophie Buller, Dr Alex Buller, and architect Pierre Du Toit at the site of the new Hastings eye clinic set to open next month. Photo / Duncan Brown

If you have spotted the new distinctive striped paintwork on the former Hirepool building on Southampton St East, Hastings, you may not need to make use of the services that are to be offered there when it reopens next month.

By then it will be transformed into The Eye Surgery Hastings - a specialist eye clinic that's being built by doctors Alex and Sophie Buller.

Dr Alex Buller currently works at Royston Hospital as an ophthalmologist, as well as consulting for Hawke's Bay Hospital, providing regular and emergency services to the community.

He said the pair's move to build their own clinic was prompted by a desire to create a specialist service, able to keep up to date with current medical practice as well as be positioned for ongoing medical developments into the future.

One of two eye doctors at Royston, he said the services there had been excellent but this was an opportunity to take the next step.

"We will be running an outpatients clinic and operating theatre, and will be treating a lot of the common eye diseases such as cataracts, eyelid conditions and glaucoma.

"These are becoming increasingly complex with new interventions coming online in the next few years - but really it's business as usual, just in a different building."

Looking to the future, the pair hoped more ophthalmologists would move to the region in coming years, and that they might be able to accommodate them.

The facility, the building of which was expected to be completed this month, comprised reception area, waiting room, consulting and treatment rooms and an operating theatre.

"This was an empty shell so we have been able to design it how we want it with easy access, ample parking and a covered area for people to be dropped off and picked up at the door," Dr Buller said.

The pair called on the services of Fat Parrot Architecture's Pierre Du Toit to help with the design, as well as the distinctive paintwork.

Mr Du Toit said the Bullers presented him with a large palette of colours, which he whittled down to about 10, and then put together in a striped design, similar to what he had seen on buildings in Europe.

"It was a challenge - we had a bland building without any windows - so far there's been a great, positive reaction to it."

The collaboration continued with the contracting of MCL Construction for the building work, and project manager Phil Mitchell said it had been an interesting project, working with the owner operators and making their ideas come to life.