Albury Wodonga Health is seeking an urgent guarantee from the Victorian government its staff and locums won't be impacted by the decision to shut the border to NSW.
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The cross-border health service with major hospitals in Albury and Wodonga have staff who live either side of the border and are equally reliant on city-based visiting medicos to provide ongoing services.
Representation is being made directly to the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services on the issue.
"We want that assurance that any staff, whether they are local or are travelling from Melbourne or outside the bubble, that they will not be impacted by border closure," AWH acting pandemic response director Julie Wright said.
"It's the part we need to be really sure of."
Ms Wright said AWH had been on the "front foot" in urging staff going on holidays for Christmas-New Year to re-think travel plans in light of the Sydney COVID-19 cluster.
"Coming into the Christmas period we were alerting staff 'don't travel if you don't have to' and if you go to these areas it may impact on your return," she said.
"But living on the border people are already aware of what goes on and think twice before they have travelled."
The health service is also confident it will have sufficient staff to perform services, such as theatre operations, which traditionally close during Christmas-New Year and resume Monday.
Additional staff were also brought in to process swabs.
"We re-visited that given the pressures and queries that were coming from people as they were getting to the border and wanted to be tested," she said.
"There are also people who returned to the area yesterday and were anxious about whether they've been exposed.
"We're just responding as the need arises.
"The next 24 hours could be interesting from the point of view of how many people get to Albury and potentially can't get across the border."
