Long-awaited Albury hospital master plan to be delivered in a matter of weeks

In his opening address to welcome Victorian and NSW Health Ministers Mary-Anne Thomas and Ryan Park to the Border city on Wednesday, September 6, Albury Wodonga Health chairman Jonathan Green announced the long-awaited plan would be realised to outline the specifics of the major development, aimed to be complete in 2027.

Chief executive of the health service Bill Appleby said the community would "absolutely" get to see it.

"There's been a lot of work going on over the last 10 months in terms of master planning and weighing up with various options and privatisations around service adjacency and those sorts of things," he said.

"We look forward to releasing that, probably late September, early October."

In his first visit to the Border since the Labor government was elected in NSW in March 2023, Mr Park said he had been won over by the plan for a co-located hospital on the existing site in Albury rather than a greenfield alternative.

"Given we already have existing infrastructure on the site, with a brand new emergency department taking place, a cath lab and a cancer centre, I know how important it is to make those things as integrated, as connected as possible," he said.

"In NSW, like in Victoria, we do have a tough fiscal position and tough budgetary decisions.

"It makes sense to make sure that we are building a health facility in an area where we've got not only existing health facilities, but brand new facilities coming out of the ground."

Mr Park said the hospital would meet the needs of the growing Border and North East region into the future, but expected advocacy to continue long beyond when it is built.

"There will always be expansion going on and calls for expansion of services down the track. We shouldn't be thinking in the next six months, in the next 12 months, but we should be thinking long term," he said.

"This is an opportunity and a plan to get this right. I think it does do that, but I also expect that local members, local mayors who we've got with us today, local residents and local stakeholder groups, including clinicians, will continue to be knocking on my door, Justin's (Clancy) door, on the chair's door and on Minister Thomas' door to make sure that we look forward.

"You've always got to be looking at what is happening in your community, not just in terms of population growth, but also in terms of their health outcomes and what we need to deliver in terms of those health services."

Ms Thomas said a new clinical services building would "deliver more and better services for the people of Albury-Wodonga and indeed surrounding communities".

"New medical beds, new surgical beds, a brand new ICU centre, a children's ward, and of course, we will co-locate maternity and neonatal services, right here with our ICU specialists," she said.

"Over the last year, what I've heard from the community and from the health services board is the importance of ensuring that the co-location of acute services happens.

"What I heard was that the community was very concerned that maternity being located at Wodonga meant that we were seeing mothers and babies being transported over to Albury. That just was not on, it doesn't make sense in terms of ensuring that we do everything we can to deliver the very best and safe maternity services.

"This project is one of the biggest investments in regional health services right across Australia. I'm really excited with the announcement of the finalisation of the master plan to be able to say that entity service planning for Wodonga is already under way."

Ms Thomas said despite the removal of maternity services from Wodonga hospital, the building would continue to play a key role.

Advocacy group Better Border Health welcomed the commitment by Albury Wodonga Health to release the master plan.

Better Border Health and clinicians from the Border Medical Association met with Mr Park and Ms Thomas and raised its key concerns.

"We welcome the opportunity to canvass alternative proposals for the delivery of health care with the ministers to meet immediate demand and to provide the growth in services needed for the future," a Better Border Health spokesperson said.

"There is a crisis right now and safety continues to be compromised even with the proposed new build.

"We have sought assurances from the ministers that these two issues will be addressed. The need for temporary measures to be taken to meet the daily shortfall in beds being experienced now, and the compromises being made in planning for the redevelopment."

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