DR LACHLAN MCKEEMAN, WODONGA GP:\u00a0 When you’re trying to do this under time pressure for an emergency, it is proper stressful. It can be really scary.<\/p>\n
ERIN SOMERVILLE, REPORTER:\u00a0Dr Lachlan McKeeman regularly crosses the Victoria-New South Wales border for work.<\/p>\n
LACHLAN MCKEEMAN:\u00a0 We basically have one hospital separated between two sites that are in different states, different towns.<\/p>\n
ERIN SOMERVILLE:\u00a0 He says it\u2019s a drive that can quickly turn deadly.<\/p>\n
LACHLAN MCKEEMAN:\u00a0 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
ERIN SOMERVILLE:\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
Services are split across the two hospitals, so doctors and patients routinely travel between them.<\/p>\n
LACHLAN MCKEEMAN:\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
ERIN SOMERVILLE:\u00a0State and federal governments have long recognised the Albury Wodonga healthcare divide isn\u2019t working for the community.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
DANIEL ANDREWS, FMR VICTORIAN PREMIER: \u00a0All the experts are really clear. This is the best way to deliver brand new facilities and to deliver them as quickly as possible.\u00a0<\/p>\n
LACHLAN MCKEEMAN:\u00a0When the announcement was initially made, the scale of disappointment is pretty large.\u00a0<\/p>\n
ERIN SOMERVILLE:\u00a0 The decision has caused major tension in the community.<\/p>\n
LACHLAN MCKEEMAN:\u00a0There 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
ERIN SOMERVILLE:\u00a0 The upgrade has a strict $558-million budget, split across state governments, with some input from the Commonwealth as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n
DR AMANDA COHN, NSW GREENS MLC:\u00a0 It\u2019s pretty unfathomable that millions of dollars of public money being spent on a hospital in a regional community doesn\u2019t have social licence, but that\u2019s the situation that we are in Albury Wodonga.<\/p>\n
ERIN SOMERVILLE:\u00a0 NSW Greens MP, Amanda Cohn, previously worked at Albury Hospital as a doctor.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s used parliamentary orders to obtain documents about the upgrade\u2019s funding alleging the plan keeps getting scaled back to fit the budget.<\/p>\n
AMANDA COHN:\u00a0 It\u2019s clear from the documents that I\u2019ve released through the parliament that what\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
ERIN SOMERVILLE:\u00a0 The new clinical services building will be seven storeys instead of a proposed 10.<\/p>\n
The helipad is missing.<\/p>\n
Some spaces, including a paediatrics unit, operating theatre, education areas and consulting rooms will be built as shells.<\/p>\n
And the site will remain split, with dialysis, day procedures, and sub-acute care like physiotherapy, remaining in Wodonga.<\/p>\n
AMANDA COHN:\u00a0 So this redevelopment isn\u2019t actually meeting its primary objective of bringing all hospital services onto one site.\u00a0<\/p>\n
ERIN SOMERVILLE:\u00a0 In May, an independent report examining New South Wales healthcare funding was released.<\/p>\n
Commissioned by the state government, its findings support the community\u2019s concerns regarding cuts to the project.<\/p>\n
EXTRACT FROM REPORT:\u00a0It 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.<\/p>\n
ERIN SOMERVILLE:\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
They conceded the renal unit is operating at 130 per cent capacity.<\/p>\n
The Commonwealth knocked them back.<\/p>\n
LEA RUSSELL, DIALYSIS PATIENT:\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
ERIN SOMERVILLE:\u00a0Retired 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.<\/p>\n
LEA RUSSELL:\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
ERIN SOMERVILLE:\u00a0 For months, Lea travelled hundreds of kilometres three times a week to secure an available dialysis chair wherever she could – even going interstate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
LEA RUSSELL:\u00a0 I travelled to Wagga for about four months. It was exhausting.<\/p>\n
ERIN SOMERVILLE:\u00a0 As it stands, Albury Wodonga Health has nine dialysis chairs.<\/p>\n
The redevelopment will boost that number to 17 but that\u2019s 10 fewer chairs than was recommended by a clinical services report in 2021.<\/p>\n
LEA RUSSELL:\u00a0 I don’t believe that that’s anywhere near going to be enough for the need, the growing need in the community.\u00a0<\/p>\n
ERIN SOMERVILLE:\u00a0 The Victorian and New South Wales health ministers didn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
In August, work on the Albury hospital began but protests like this one in front of Albury MP Justin Clancy\u2019s office continue.<\/p>\n
JULIE KINDELLAN, HOSPITAL ADVOCACY GROUP MEMBER:\u00a0 I\u2019ll continue to fight for our community, for public patients, for my family and friends to be able to access timely care in the future\u00a0<\/p>\n
JUSTIN CLANCY, MEMBER FOR ALBURY:\u00a0 I understand we\u2019d 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
ERIN SOMERVILLE:\u00a0 New South Wales Premier Chris Minns visited Albury last week and stood by the redevelopment saying the community can no longer wait.<\/p>\n
CHRIS MINNS, NEW SOUTH WALES PREMIER:\u00a0 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\u2019m just concerned about an extensive delay.<\/p>\n
LACHLAN MCKEEMAN:\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DR LACHLAN MCKEEMAN, WODONGA GP:\u00a0 When you’re trying to do this under time pressure for an emergency, it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":219163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[133798,64,63,2494,137,500,4082,48995,133799],"class_list":{"0":"post-219162","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-albury","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-funding","12":"tag-health","13":"tag-healthcare","14":"tag-hospital","15":"tag-state-government","16":"tag-wodonga"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}