The Border Medical Association responds to Victorian, NSW funding for hospital rebuild

Rather than hastily coming to conclusions, we have taken time to consider last week's commitments.

It must be acknowledged how reassuring it was to see the premiers of NSW and Victoria working together in an attempt to improve the lot of our health service, for our community. It is pleasing to finally see two leaders recognise that AWH was in desperate need of support.

The Border Medical Association is not satisfied with this outcome, and nor should our community be satisfied with the outcome.

It feels strangely hollow, and disappointment amongst clinicians remains.

Just break it down - $115 million was already committed, which includes the emergency department first announced in 2017. Each state has allocated only an additional $225 million. Commitments to large tranches of funding only come along once a generation and we see this as an opportunity lost.

After having to battle to get this far, when will we see an opportunity again? How long will we wait, another 10, 15, 20 years?

What has been announced is not a new hospital on a new site. It is not even a new hospital on a construction site.

It is a halfway house with no further commitments to funding a whole hospital that will now require multiple stages - stages that were announced last week as not being completed until 2034 - if there is a pipeline of ongoing funding. There is no commitment to additional stages that would see that through to completion.

There is no doubt that this announcement carried significance by bringing two states together but is not the long-term circuit breaker we require. With only one additional stage on the current site committed to, the community will need to be cap in hand and agitating for additional funding well into the next decade.

Our health service will work through multiple stages of construction, with the long-term future constrained by our current footprint.

The possibility of creating a future precinct on the current site, with a co-located private hospital and large education and research facility is up in the air.

We are sincerely grateful to those who have supported us to this point, on what has not been a quick journey.

To the late CEO of AWH, Michael Kalimnios, a kind and supportive leader who saw us on this path. To Better Border Health, the community action group who have shifted the needle with their advocacy. To the local political representatives who would actively seek our opinion and collaborate on a path forward. To the local media, particularly The Border Mail who strongly supported this as a key community issue.

There are countless people who have contributed, and they should be proud of their efforts. None more so than our own Dr Barb Robertson, the chair of the BMA.

What is needed right now is transparency. Our community deserves nothing less. It was made clear by the Chair of the AWH Board that the greenfield approach was identified as the most pragmatic way forward to deliver a new single-site hospital in the planning process.

This planning process involved senior members of the NSW and Victorian health departments. The outcome was backed by the AWH Board and clinical staff. Do it once, do it right, get a new site. It was even an open secret in the community. Yet it is clear there was little that AWH could do to advocate - cast your mind back to when the masterplan was put under lock and key by the Victorian Health department.

Now questions are being asked, as Premier Andrews referred questions on the masterplan back to our health service board, because it belonged to AWH.

If that were the case, why were they not allowed to present it to their community until it was too late?

Why did a planning process that included the departments not make it to the ears of the premiers? How was the message changed that a protracted brownfield approach was better?

Was $225 million from NSW and Victoria really the best outcome for our community's health, or merely the bare minimum to be seen to be doing something for a health service that is overwhelmed?

We do not apologise for advocating that, for the safety and best health outcomes for our broad community, we need a single site hospital. Our concerns should not be twisted to create angst on either side of the river - what is good for one side will be good for the other.

We need our community to understand that this is not sour grapes, but merely highlighting how insufficient the funding announcement was and the complications that will follow from that.

Nearly 30 years ago, when planning the "new" Albury Base Hospital, the input of the community and clinicians was ignored. In many ways, the mess we are in now stems back to that time.

We cannot allow history to be repeated. The premiers came to the Border in response to community pressure.

However, we have been left sadly wanting, and this has been rightly pointed out by our civic leaders.

The pressure needs to continue, as our community cannot continue to accept second best. We need a commitment to a complete new single-site hospital, not a halfway house.

We deserve a commitment to build the best health service for the future. We need our community to continue this fight with us and hope to see both sides of the river strongly represented at the Better Border Health rally on November 13.

We need to continue to make our voices heard. We cannot continue to risk the future of health care on the border.