Funding for an improved ICU facility will need to compete with promises made by the Andrews Labor Government in its successful re-election campaign late last year.

But, AWH chief executive Leigh McJames said the ICU expansion from five to 20 beds was part of an agreed strategy by the board to consolidate acute care services at Albury.

AWH has been sitting on a $30 million grant from the NSW Government since mid-2017 in the hope it can secure a matching amount from Victoria.

An unsuccessful funding bid was made last year to relocate maternity services from Wodonga, but a recent master-planning process has made the ICU unit a higher, shorter term priority.

“The numbers stack up,” Mr McJames said.

“It is an agreed priority, we have the support of the department, the government has obviously made a range of undertakings as part of their re-election, and that all needs to be factored in.”

A meeting between AWH and newly installed Victorian health minister Jenny Mikakos is planned early this year with Wangaratta hospital receiving an additional $10 million in the recent election campaign.

AWH plans include a dedicated treatment area for mental health patients which is described as a “glaring deficiency” presently.

AWH had 63,470 presentations to its emergency departments in Albury and Wodonga in 2017-18 _ an increase of 527 on the previous year when it was already ahead of other comparable Victorian regional health services including Bendigo, Ballarat and Shepparton.

The expanded Albury emergency department will extend to the south on the hospital site.

“It desperately needs expansion,” Mr McJames said.

“It is priority one.”

Mr McJames said Wodonga’s emergency department would remain open when the Albury upgrade was completed.

He said the Wodonga hospital would become a dedicated site for sub acute services where there were also some glaring efficiencies.

“They are spread all over the place at the moment,” he said.

“We’ve built a cath lab, a cancer centre and it is a no-brainer where acute services need to to be.”

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