Close to 30,000 babies have been born at Wodonga hospital since the Mercy birthing unit in Albury shut in the late 1990s.

A return to Albury for maternity services has been re-affirmed in a master-plan recently completed for Albury-Wodonga Health with a multi-storey women’s and children’s wing to also include paediatric services and dedicated beds for women’s surgery to be built on the eastern side of the hospital.

The price tag for the facility will be between $60 and $100 million.

It will be built following the $30 million emergency department upgrade and proposed $30 million intensive care unit revamp.

“It is going to be a totally rebuilt facility,” AWH director Janet Chapman said.

“It is also co-locating maternity with ICU which just gives everybody assurances they will be given the best level of care locally they can get.

“These changes are designed to improved quality and safety, particularly for mothers.

“We run risks at the moment with this service being split and we have to minimise those risks.”

An average 1650 babies are presently delivered in Wodonga each year, but the bulk of paediatric services are in Albury.

The relocation could also be the forerunner to the health service’s present ratings as level five maternity and level four special care nursery being upgraded.

Presently depending on the circumstances and stages of the pregnancy, mothers are transferred to Royal Women’s Hospital in Melbourne.

“The expectation will be going to a level six will allow us to operate at a more sophisticated level,” Ms Chapman said.

It was revealed last year $1 million had been spent by AWH on accommodation to ensure a paediatric registrar and anaesthetist could be at Wodonga hospital around-the-clock to avoid a downgrade.

The women’s and newborn unit will be built at the same level as the cardiac catheter lab to avoid the loss of carparking on the Albury hospital site.

AWH chief executive Leigh McJames also revealed as part of this development the health service will be putting out an expressions of interest this year to the private sector for uses which could justify the addition the addition of another floor and potentially more beds.

“It is good business to have a precinct,” he said.

“We are saying to the private sector if you want a piece of the action come and talk to us.

“Our interest is to minimise the cost to the taxpayer.

“A modern, contemporary (health) service has private and public in the one precinct.”