Border Medical Association deputy chair David Clancy told a health forum in Wodonga people were considering leaving the area due to a loss of faith in health services.

"I want to focus on the ... trauma that has been sustained by our staff - by our healthcare workers - as they try and hold this place together and hold our area together," he told Friday's forum hosted by Benambra Liberal MP Bill Tilley and attended by Victorian Opposition leader Matthew Guy.

"The reality is we create trauma for our patients by the health service that we have at the moment," Dr Clancy said.

"It's the GP that's really struggling with the patient that's got borderline personality disorder that can't get the care that they need."

A new hospital for Albury-Wodonga is estimated to cost about $1 billion, something Indi independent MP Helen Haines has called for the federal government to help fund.

But residents are still waiting for the details of a masterplan to be released.

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Dr Clancy said politicians and governments on both sides of the Border needed to work together to address the crisis.

"It's the nursing staff, the backbone of our hospital ... that are 24/7 flogging their guts out trying to hold it together," he said. "And it's the clinicians who are coming all day, all night ... trying to keep people safe, keep people in beds that are not meant to be there."

"What we need moving forward is short-term support.

"We need bipartisan, unified approaches across the river and across all the levels of government to make sure that we do push on and get that new hospital on that new site everybody so desperately needs."

Vicky Lancaster, a Border resident, went along to yesterday's forum to voice her concerns about how she was treated as an Albury Wodonga Health patient.

Ms Lancaster said she had gone to Albury hospital with chest pains but was sent home and told to take pain killers. She spent six hours in the emergency waiting room with doctors and nurses "walking past me like I didn't exist", she said.

The NSW government promised $45 million for Albury hospital's expansion plans in 2019.

Albury Wodonga Health falls under the Victorian health department.

A new emergency department is due to open at Albury hospital in 2023 but Albury Wodonga Health has been plagued by staffing shortages in the meantime, particularly during the pandemic as staff came down with COVID-19.

Mr Guy said he would be back to visit the region to announce his party's plans to fix the health crisis.

"I don't want anyone on the Border to feel that they have to get proper health care by going to Melbourne," he said.

"This is one of the biggest inland cities in Australia. People shouldn't have to leave here and go to Melbourne ... that's not fair."

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