Health boss grilled by Border locals at emergency department open day

Albury Wodonga Health chief executive Bill Appleby, who led several tours on April 6, was grilled by patients who had experienced the old ED, and by people curious to see how part of the $558 million joint funding to redevelop the hospital was being spent.

Mr Appleby and other AWH guides faced questions about parking problems, waiting times and just how good the standard of infrastructure was.

During the tour, Albury woman and long-time blood donor Ann Appleby (no relation) asked Mr Appleby if the new ED would improve waiting times and whether people would be triaged in the waiting room.

"I had that pleasure or displeasure of spending five and a half hours in the waiting room and they were absolutely flat chat," Mrs Appleby said.

"And I know there were people having heart attacks out the back because you could hear it. But will this hopefully prevent people being seen in the waiting room?"

Mr Appleby said there would always be "peaks and troughs" for demand on the staff, and pointed to the need for more beds.

"There's fluctuations," Mr Appleby told the group. "Friday night is typically a busy night ... sporting weekends are typically big for musculoskeletal injuries, so you get peaks and troughs.

"This environment is a game changer in terms of our ability to provide safer care and we've increased our staffing numbers to fit in this environment.

"But it doesn't address the fact that we don't have enough beds in our hospital ... we need to also be addressing the issues around increasing capacity of the hospital."

Another member of the public asked Mr Appleby about the lack of car parking.

"The community really hates parking here," she said. "I know you want all the bells and whistles and whatever, but, gee, good parking would cut right through people's frustration."

Mr Appleby responded by saying planners faced challenges and that it "was about incremental improvement".

"It's a balancing act between where do we put our precious dollars?" he said. "Where do we put our precious resources? We want to elevate our self sufficiency to be able to deliver the best care that we can here in order to save patients going down to Melbourne."

An Albury couple who toured the ED with their two children earlier in the day stayed to enjoy the free sausage sizzle, hamburgers and other snacks.

Accountant Nathan Ramanathan and his wife Teeba, a doctor who previously worked at Albury hospital ED, said the new unit was a "vast improvement" over what was there before.

"It's a really good, it will add value to the community here," Dr Ramanathan said. "We are in in a place where we interconnect with Victoria.

"When I was pregnant, I came for four hours waiting, it was frustrating, there were less staff and and the congested facilities were very limited."

Mr Ramanathan said the quality and dedication of the staff "made up for the poor facilities".

"We had some good experiences as well as bad experiences with the waiting period, but the staff were wonderful. I think that this new ED will help fix those waiting times."