Albury's five-year-old cancer centre has always been a live option for a COVID ward, Helen Haines says, but questions remain about a longer-term pandemic response.
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The Indi MP said Albury Wodonga Health's formal request to Ramsay Health to establish a 10-bed COVID ward in the east wing of the Border Cancer Hospital further proved "why we need a world-class hospital".
"Albury Wodonga Health has had a plan for some time that, should this situation occur, this would be what they would need to do; utilise the one space we have ... which does have laminar flow facilities," Dr Haines said.
"Again, it highlights that our public health service doesn't have the facilities that it needs.
"This is a long-standing request, not just for COVID, but for other infectious diseases."
Dr Haines' 2020 budget submission recommended a $500,000 project be jointly funded by the federal and state governments to create negative pressure rooms for safe care of patients with infectious diseases.
"The Albury campus of AWH is its major acute site but at present there are no negative pressure rooms on site. This project would construct two rooms," the budget submission stated.
The establishment of 'medical ward three' with negative pressure on the top floor of the cancer centre follows an assessment of HVAC systems across AWH.
The ward will only be activated if the three isolation rooms at Albury Base, stood up this week following the admission of COVID-positive patients, were full.
Albury Wodonga Health chief executive Michael Kalimnios told The Border Mail there were no other areas that would be suitable for a COVID ward.
"With our current infrastructure, we had limited capacity to create the environment that would be safe ... it was the best and quickest option for us," he said.
"We are still looking at other areas in the hospital that with some modification, we could convert.
"It's just part of the reality of our current infrastructure.
"We are working through our master planning process at the moment ... and in building a new hospital, how we would create more negative pressure areas."
The negative pressure areas created in the new medical ward three, through upgrades to air conditioning, will prevent air flowing into other parts of the cancer hospital and direct it into external vents.
Mr Kalimnios confirmed broader cancer centre staff and staff working in the COVID ward would share the same corridor, but said strict PPE and other procedures would minimise risk.
"One of the safeguards we've put in place is an airlock, between the actual cancer ward and the main thoroughfare corridor," he said.
"So what that does is provide a buffer.
"In terms of the corridors leading into the area, again we've developed protocols where those corridors are regularly cleaned.
"We've designed the process so it is very much an isolation ward ... there's very little traffic going into and past that ward."
Mr Kalimnios addressed concerns from residents about COVID patients being put in the same facility as immuno-compromised people.
"There's obviously nervousness from staff and patients and we expected that," he said.
"We wouldn't do anything that would compromise care or safety of patients and staff.
"We haven't done this on a whim obviously; we've really had to look at this plan, negotiate with Ramsay and had engineers sign off on it.
"It's been a very thorough process and we're confident that we've eliminated risk."
Albury Wodonga Health is not a streaming hospital for COVID and Dr Haines said Victoria's regional health plan stated if someone required hospitalisation, they'd be 'streamed' to Melbourne.
"We haven't heard from the state government why that has changed," she said.
"What's clearly changed is that there's no room in the Melbourne hospitals."
Dr Haines said lockdown was "not the answer at this moment".
"We're going to see more and more of circulating virus," she said.
"From our health administrators' perspective, they have this under control.
"I have enormous confidence in Albury Wodonga Health; if they need for us to do more to help them, then we should. If they say no, it's okay, then we are guided by them."
