You don't need to do a forensic examination of the situation to realise that the service, which provides public health to some 250,000 people, has been seriously neglected.

That obviously is not an issue to do with the quality of care that is provided. Rather, it is the phenomenal effort that is made to provide such care with meager funding.

IN OTHER NEWS:

The Border is known for having one of the most diverse, extensive medical communities in regional Australia.

And yet government has consistently, for some years, been unwilling to match that with the recurrent but especially capital funding required to service that and the ordinary people who receive medical treatment.

It's nothing new, yet somehow the NSW but especially Victorian governments have been all too willing to duck and weave when it comes to facing facts.

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They will try to bat away the criticism, almost indignantly, by drawing out all sorts of figures and statistics to serve their own purposes, then hope the problem will disappear.

This is a disgrace.

The residents of the wider Border region - across Victoria's North West and to towns far to the west in NSW - were supposed to have been given a remedy to cross-border issues when Victoria effectively took over Albury Wodonga Health.

OUR SAY - GIVE US A NEW HOSPITAL:

As Border Medical Association chairman Scott Giltrap points out, Albury Wodonga Health "has done a great job over the last decade providing an excellent service within the constraints of being spread over two campuses and the financial and safety issues that this imposes".

When compared with similar-sized centres such as Ballarat, Bendigo and Wagga, our health service has been treated with disdain - minute capital funding despite being the busiest of the four and clearly needing a new hospital.

"The average for all the other health areas over recent years is $430 million compared to $30 million for Albury Wodonga Health."

It is blatantly obvious that government has been neglectful to an abhorrent degree.