This burden will be alleviated when Albury Wodonga Health’s new cardiac catheter lab begins interventions in the near future.

The cath lab was officially opened on Friday and begins taking patients for diagnostic angiograms, where a catheter is threaded through an artery in the arm to check the heart, on Tuesday.

Project leader Bree Styles said down the track patients could have life-saving heart surgeries done in Albury.

“(When that happens) will depend on the organisational level – you do need to have a certain amount of staff and cardiologists available,” she said.

“Our main aim of the next six to 12 months is to build this workforce up.

“There’s lots of interventions and procedures we can look into down the track – that’s a matter of liaising with St Vincents Hospital – we won’t be doing the stents or pacemakers just yet.”

Albury Wodonga Health board chair Nicki Melville thanked the team at St Vincents for their guidance, and Associate Professor David Prior, who was present at the official opening.

“David and his team have been coming up here to train our staff and make sure it’s ready to go, and now we’re so happy to have recruited Dr Wei Sim, now permanently based here,” she said.

“What it means now is starting on Tuesday, we’ll be seeing four people twice a week, eight patients to start with under David and Wei’s guidance.”

Funded by $5 million from the federal government with operations to be jointly funded by the NSW and Victorian state governments, Ms Melville said the new cath lab was the “missing piece in the jigsaw” for the health service.

“Many of you were present at the opening of the cancer centre, but the gap for us was always cardiology,” she said.

Member for Farrer Sussan Ley also mentioned the cancer centre opening, and said the funding for the cath lab would not have come about without the campaigning of former Indi MP Sophie Mirabella.

“(The cath lab) will be no less important,” she said.

“The then opposition health spokesperson Peter Dutton implemented it (the funding) when he became the health minister in 2013.”

Member for Albury Greg Aplin also recognised Ms Mirabella’s contribution and that of the federal government.

“A cardiac catheter laboratory will provide much needed diagnostic services to the community, offering world-class services closer to home,” he said.

“The lab keeps us off the Hume Highway.”