A FUNDRAISING appeal to equip Okehampton's forthcoming state-of-the-art hospital is nearly at the £200,000 mark.

Local fundraising and donations have reached £50,000 and with pledges from trusts it brings the current total to £194,000.

The appeal is taking on a new prominence with the opening of an information centre/appeal shop in St James Street, Okehampton.

Since August 1, the shop has been opening on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays to raise awareness of the appeal and what the money will provide and to advertise fundraising events.

Manned by a rota of 30 volunteers, the shop offers all the promotional material if people decide to hold an event to raise money including posters, programmes and invitations.

Volunteer John Marvin said: 'If someone wants to hold a coffee morning, for example, we can go along and set up a table with all the information concerning the new hospital including drawings.

'This way we can answer any enquiries that the general public have.'

Mr Marvin said one of the main concerns people had was that the hospital would not be big enough because the total number of beds would be 14 fewer than at present.

The new facility, which will be built on a greenfield site off Crediton Road, will replace Okehampton District Hospital and Okehampton Castle Hospital.

When deciding the hospital size the expected rise in the local population over the next ten years and the current low bed occupancy in both existing hospitals — which has been 55 per cent over the last ten years — has been taken into account.

In a recent article in the Okehampton Times, the driving force behind the project, Dr Paul

Neilson, said after an in-depth investigation it was decided to build a new hospital with 35 beds.

This would provide four more beds than Government targets required for a bed occupancy of 75-80 per cent — at the moment the average number of occupied beds was 22.

Dr Neilson said there was also ample provision for expansion in the future should the need arise.

He said the number of beds was considered more than adequate for the foreseeable future and if anything the need for beds could actually reduce because the advances in medicine would lead to shorter and shorter stays in hospital.

The new hospital will cost £5 million and will provided by NHS capital funds. The money raised by the appeal — which has a target of £250,000 — will buy equipment and facilities to ensure that the hospital is in the forefront of medical technology.