It's time to properly deliver our single-site hospital

This has many benefits for our community, but it also comes with unique challenges.

Perhaps the most significant of these is providing a regional hospital on a single site that caters for the current and future needs of the growing Albury-Wodonga community and region.

This requires commitment from both state governments, which we received in 2022 with the announcement of $558M to fund stages 1 to 3 of ‘a new world-class hospital for Albury-Wodonga' to be located at the Albury Hospital campus.

These stages were to encompass:

• a clinical services building (including an intensive care unit, maternity and paediatric services)
• a helipad
• neonatal care
• new operating theatres
• 32 mental health beds
• expansion of outpatient and specialist spaces
• a multi-level car park.

However, with the release of the Masterplan Report in February, it has become apparent that the funding – significant and welcome as it is – will not be enough to deliver these stages as initially outlined.

It appears that, according to Albury Wodonga Health, the proposed works have been scaled back to fit the budget.

At AlburyCity’s most recent Council meeting on 11 March, Councillors unanimously supported a motion in Mayor King’s Mayoral Minute to call on the NSW, Victorian and Australian governments to invest further in making a fully equipped and future-proof single-site hospital a reality for Albury-Wodonga.

We’re asking all three governments to:

• allocate additional funding in upcoming budgets to complete stages 1 to 3 as previously announced.
• develop an implementation plan, including timelines for the project.
• allocate funding for future stages in forward estimate budgets.
• start detailed design for further stages as soon as building begins on stage 1
• keep the community and key stakeholders informed throughout.

This continues our consistent advocacy for the progression of a single-site hospital.

Albury-Wodonga needs a single-site hospital to meet the needs of our growing community now and into the future. It’s time for all three governments to fully enable the nation’s only cross border health service and deliver that properly.