Melanie Gates began running Ramsay Health Care’s Albury-Wodonga services in August, filling the role of former chief executive of five years Doug McRae.

Mrs Gates started with Ramsay in Perth three years ago, as an executive manager at the Joondalup Health Campus, and jumped at the opportunity to transfer to the Border.

“To be able to work within the organisation and in a small community felt like a really great opportunity,” she said.

“I came from a 715 licensed bed facility with a public-private mix, to these three facilities (in Albury-Wodonga) that are much smaller.

“We are very embedded within the community here and you’re never far away form hearing about someone’s personal experience.

“When you’re in a bigger environment, you don’t feel that impact as closely as how I feel it here – that’s been a big difference.”

Her previous experience with a public-private partnership has supported Mrs Gates’ role in overseeing the oncology services at the Albury Wodonga Regional Cancer Centre.

“It’s just growing and that’s shown it was a centre desperately needed for this region and we’re attracting patients from beyond what was first anticipated,” she said.

“Working with Albury Wodonga Health, the oncologists and attached services has been a very successful partnership all around and I think there’s opportunity to continue to do more.”

Mrs Gates would also look to grow service offerings across the board.

“It’s surprised me people still have to travel to Melbourne or Sydney for certain things – I know what other people have in metropolitan areas and that’s what we deserve here,” she said.

“Sometimes we have the services already here, so it may be a lack of awareness that we can provide that, and other times it may be we have long wait lists.

“I think as a health ecosystem here we can do better than that, we can really focus on delivering what our community needs locally.

“I think it’s about really understanding what the community needs and either introducing specific new services or growing what we already have so the waits aren’t so long.”

The 2000^th patient went through the cath lab at the Albury-Wodonga Private Hospital in Pemberton Street this year, a patient safety training program was conducted, and a new ‘Ramsay Engagement App’ will be rolled out soon to allow better staff communication and doctor access to information.

Since oncology services were transferred to the new cancer hospital in 2016, the building formerly occupied by the Murray Valley Radiation Oncology Centre in Wodonga has been put on the market.

Mrs Gates said there were opportunities to do more at the Murray Valley Private Hospital.

“It’s an extraordinary building and continues to provide rehab – we put in an additional gym this year – and when we look at the public perspective there is very high occupancy, so to me I look at our space we have available and think there’s opportunity around growing our partnerships with the public health system to see if we can reduce some of those wait times in the future,” she said.

“There’s obviously a lot of red tape that would involve but I think it’s being open to those partnerships and thinking of ourselves as a whole health ecosystem and not purely private.”

In the meantime Mrs Gates, her husband and twin daughters will be further settling in.

“I hadn’t visited Albury but everything about it I heard and saw just looked beautiful – it’s been a great decision,” she said.

“From a personal perspective I’ve found the community really warm and welcoming.”