Albury Wodonga Health's board is putting pressure on the Victorian Health and Human Services Building Authority to prepare a tender for the Albury emergency department upgrade.
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AWH board chair Nicki Melville said the project was in the hands of the Victorian department.
"The ED project is shovel-ready; we have the $36 million, but it's still in Melbourne with the building authority," she said.
"They money is in the bank, designs have all been approved, and we're waiting on them.
"We're really anxious to start as soon as we can, it's probably not an ideal time to be turning the first sod at Albury, but we've got to go to tender anyway and that will take some time."
The $30 million was announced in the 2017-2018 NSW state budget and the VHHSBA undertook hospital masterplanning consultation in October 2018.
The two Health Ministers flagged a timeframe of work beginning this year for completion by 2022, with design work to start "immediately".
The NSW government is spending $100 million to fast-track health infrastructure projects like new intensive care unit beds at Dubbo, but the Albury ED was not among them.
"It's very pleasing for me as Health Minister to be able to say that's happening not only in our major cities, but also in the bush," Mr Hazzard said on Friday.
While the AWH board awaits confirmation on the ED rebuild, Ms Melville said no major funding had been requested for infrastructure projects due to COVID-19.
"Overall we're short on theatre space and we're short on beds, so we've freed things up by putting people into the two private hospitals because of the virus," Ms Melville said.
"We're just really doing what everybody's doing ... keeping an inventory [of equipment] on a daily basis.
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"We're well-placed at the moment."
A shared-care model has been established with Ramsay Health in regards to public rehabilitation services.
In a statement AWH chief executive Michael Kalimnios said the health service continued to work closely with the Victorian health department to access the funding and equipment needed to manage COVID-19.
Asked whether AWH was seeking to increase its number of intensive care beds from five, Mr Kalimnios said: "Albury Wodonga Health is progressing plans to increase its ICU capacity with the training of staff and the acquisition of additional equipment and resources to service this expansion."
He said the service was "ready to go with its new ED, and is keenly anticipating confirmation of a start date from the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services."
