We should feel cheated by hospital revelations

The NSW and Victorian governments are incapable of working together to deliver the hospital of the future that Albury-Wodonga deserves, and needs.

As a cross-border service, Albury Wodonga Health serves its community well - let's be clear on that - but documents obtained under freedom of information by Amanda Cohn paint a damning picture of where the priorities of Spring and Macquarie streets lie. More will be revealed in coming weeks, but Saturday's story by Anthony Bunn highlights the manner in which the goalposts have shifted over the past few years with regards to the Albury hospital project.

Albury-Wodonga residents should feel angry. And cheated.

As recently as this month, Victorian Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas tried to pull the wool over our eyes (again), with one of her representatives telling The Border Mail: "While the Liberals are playing politics, we are getting on and delivering one of Australia's most significant investments ever in regional health infrastructure - in partnership with NSW and the community".

"The new $558 million clinical services building and upgrades at the Albury campus will deliver better care - with more beds, new operating theatres, expanded outpatient and specialist treatment spaces, a new ICU, relocated maternity and newborn services, a new children's inpatient unit and a new adult acute mental health inpatient unit," the spokesperson said on April 5.

The freedom of information documents reveal that the Victorian government doesn't even believe what it's telling our community.

The NSW government, on the other hand, is determined to slash beds, and services, to ensure that, come hell or high water, the project meets the $558 million budget and damn the needs of our community.

The Victorian government was originally open to a greenfield development but their NSW counterparts are petrified of funding a project south of the Murray River.

When school children can't work together, the principal must intervene. In this case, that's the federal government, who must step in to ensure Albury-Wodonga doesn't end up with a hospital which won't even cover the massive shortfalls that our health service has now.