Despite several setbacks, the $65 million project got the big tick and has already helped many patients, and in so doing their families, from across the region.

It was a tribute to how a united community could achieve real change vital to the ongoing health and well being of its residents.

The centre of course is a lot more than just the Albury-Wodonga region. It has been estimated that it is a health resource for some 250,000 people from right across the North East and southern NSW.

The success of the campaign amounted to a considerable testament to the never give-up approach of one of its driving forces, the late Eric Turner. The centre though is much more than the bricks and mortar everyone can see as they drive along Borella Road.

That was highlighted when concern was raised recently about the need for the NSW government to tip-in its fair share of recurrent funding to keep the centre operating to the standards required.

The argument was that just because Albury Wodonga Health comes under the Victorian health budget and control doesn’t negate the fact that it will be used by so many NSW residents.

Regardless of any funding debates, the simple fact of the matter is that the cancer centre clearly has been established – and is being run as – a centre of excellence.

The Border was already blessed with having one of the best, most diverse medical communities outside the major capital cities. This development has made the sector even more substantial.

And now the centre has been chosen to become the hub for a network connecting cancer clinical trial sites across regional Victoria.

It is significant that the trial is a first and that the Albury-Wodonga site was named one of the four successful applicants.

Indeed, Cancer Council Victoria chief executive Todd Harper referred to the “exceptionally strong application” from the Albury-Wodonga Regional Cancer Centre.

It is a coup for the centre to have been selected to run these trials and will surely be of benefit to its patients in continuing to achieve a large improvement in survival rates.

All those involved in the project are to be congratulated on what has been achieved.