DR LACHLAN MCKEEMAN, WODONGA GP:  When you’re trying to do this under time pressure for an emergency, it is proper stressful. It can be really scary.

ERIN SOMERVILLE, REPORTER: Dr Lachlan McKeeman regularly crosses the Victoria-New South Wales border for work.

LACHLAN MCKEEMAN:  We basically have one hospital separated between two sites that are in different states, different towns.

ERIN SOMERVILLE:  He says it’s a drive that can quickly turn deadly.

LACHLAN MCKEEMAN:  So that took us 16 minutes to get from the Wodonga Hospital to the Albury Hospital site. We haven’t even parked and if you’re in an urgent clinical situation there, that could be the difference between life or death. 

ERIN SOMERVILLE:  The Albury Hospital in New South Wales and the Wodonga Hospital in Victoria are divided by the Murray River but work together as one regional health hub.

Services are split across the two hospitals, so doctors and patients routinely travel between them.

LACHLAN MCKEEMAN:  So in addition to Albury Wodonga Health being spread across our two sites we’re significantly behind in terms of overall bed capacity when compared to comparable regional centres.

ERIN SOMERVILLE: State and federal governments have long recognised the Albury Wodonga healthcare divide isn’t working for the community.

But rather than build a new, single-site hospital in 2022 the New South Wales and Victorian premiers announced they would upgrade the existing Albury hospital to meet growing demand.

DANIEL ANDREWS, FMR VICTORIAN PREMIER:  All the experts are really clear. This is the best way to deliver brand new facilities and to deliver them as quickly as possible. 

LACHLAN MCKEEMAN: When the announcement was initially made, the scale of disappointment is pretty large. 

ERIN SOMERVILLE:  The decision has caused major tension in the community.

LACHLAN MCKEEMAN: There are not enough inpatient beds in this proposal to give every patient that needs a bed, a bed when they need it. It doesn’t give us enough theatres capacity in addition to what we have now to address our wait lists. 

ERIN SOMERVILLE:  The upgrade has a strict $558-million budget, split across state governments, with some input from the Commonwealth as well. 

DR AMANDA COHN, NSW GREENS MLC:  It’s pretty unfathomable that millions of dollars of public money being spent on a hospital in a regional community doesn’t have social licence, but that’s the situation that we are in Albury Wodonga.

ERIN SOMERVILLE:  NSW Greens MP, Amanda Cohn, previously worked at Albury Hospital as a doctor.

She’s used parliamentary orders to obtain documents about the upgrade’s funding alleging the plan keeps getting scaled back to fit the budget.

AMANDA COHN:  It’s clear from the documents that I’ve released through the parliament that what’s being built is to work backwards to a budget rather than working towards what we actually need. And things just keep getting cut and cut and cut.

ERIN SOMERVILLE:  The new clinical services building will be seven storeys instead of a proposed 10.

The helipad is missing.

Some spaces, including a paediatrics unit, operating theatre, education areas and consulting rooms will be built as shells.

And the site will remain split, with dialysis, day procedures, and sub-acute care like physiotherapy, remaining in Wodonga.

AMANDA COHN:  So this redevelopment isn’t actually meeting its primary objective of bringing all hospital services onto one site. 

ERIN SOMERVILLE:  In May, an independent report examining New South Wales healthcare funding was released.

Commissioned by the state government, its findings support the community’s concerns regarding cuts to the project.

EXTRACT FROM REPORT: It is not optimal practice for any health infrastructure let alone an investment of over half a billion dollars to be conceived and designed around a particular sum of money that happens to be available.

ERIN SOMERVILLE:  In October last year, the state health ministers wrote to the federal government requesting additional funding to pay for the helipad and more dialysis chairs.

They conceded the renal unit is operating at 130 per cent capacity.

The Commonwealth knocked them back.

LEA RUSSELL, DIALYSIS PATIENT:  Some days you just feel like giving up. It’s all just too hard. But I think, no, I’ve got to keep going for Lily’s sake.

ERIN SOMERVILLE: Retired nurse Lea Russell needs dialysis every 10 days. Last year, she was put on a seven-month long waitlist because there were no chairs available at Wodonga.

LEA RUSSELL:  The Royal Melbourne renal team were trying to find me a dialysis spot and there just weren’t any vacancies anywhere. I even considered just not having any more treatment, just letting it go.

ERIN SOMERVILLE:  For months, Lea travelled hundreds of kilometres three times a week to secure an available dialysis chair wherever she could – even going interstate. 

LEA RUSSELL:  I travelled to Wagga for about four months. It was exhausting.

ERIN SOMERVILLE:  As it stands, Albury Wodonga Health has nine dialysis chairs.

The redevelopment will boost that number to 17 but that’s 10 fewer chairs than was recommended by a clinical services report in 2021.

LEA RUSSELL:  I don’t believe that that’s anywhere near going to be enough for the need, the growing need in the community. 

ERIN SOMERVILLE:  The Victorian and New South Wales health ministers didn’t respond to our questions but in respective statements to 7.30 said plans won’t be delayed and the redevelopment will deliver more beds and improve healthcare in the region.

In August, work on the Albury hospital began but protests like this one in front of Albury MP Justin Clancy’s office continue.

JULIE KINDELLAN, HOSPITAL ADVOCACY GROUP MEMBER:  I’ll continue to fight for our community, for public patients, for my family and friends to be able to access timely care in the future 

JUSTIN CLANCY, MEMBER FOR ALBURY:  I understand we’d love to have all of the investment right up front. We’d love to see a complete new hospital in one stage. Having said that to get two health departments to the table and reach an agreement is in itself a significant step forward. 

ERIN SOMERVILLE:  New South Wales Premier Chris Minns visited Albury last week and stood by the redevelopment saying the community can no longer wait.

CHRIS MINNS, NEW SOUTH WALES PREMIER:  At this point we’ve got to get on with it. We need a new hospital for the health needs of this community, and I’m just concerned about an extensive delay.

LACHLAN MCKEEMAN:  No, I don’t think it’s too late to stop because there’s too much at risk if we give up on trying to fight for a hospital that can do what it needs to for our community.