Albury-Wodonga needs a single-site hospital

Tell the Health Minister

Albury-Wodonga needs a single-site hospital!

Dear Minister Park,
 
I am writing to you to urge you to review the decision to progress a brownfield redevelopment of Albury Hospital. The NSW and Victorian governments are proposing to spend $558 million on a redevelopment that can’t meet the needs of Albury-Wodonga now, let alone into the future. This is an inefficient use of precious public funds. 
Extensive consultation including experts, local clinicians and representatives of Albury-Wodonga Health and both state governments in 2021 clearly recommended a new, greenfield hospital because of the significant constraints at the current Albury Hospital site. These constraints include the small size of the site and its physical constraints, geotechnical issues, and that there’s nowhere to decant patients during what would have to be a prolonged multi-stage construction period. The “masterplan” recently released does not address any of these issues.
Albury Wodonga is currently in dire need of a new hospital. As you know, the incredible dedicated staff at Albury Hospital do their best to provide quality patient care in dire circumstances, including starting each day with a shortage of 20-60 beds.
As you know, the new Tweed Valley Hospital, which cost $723.3m took only 5 years to complete from announcement to its opening. Instead, Albury Hospital is slated to be a construction site for years to come, with clinical services continuing to need to be provided at this site through multiple unfunded and unplanned future stages of redevelopment. After all of that, we still won’t have a single-site hospital to meet the needs of our large and growing regional community. It’s very clear that having acute services split across two sites is a risk to patient safety.
As a new Health Minister in a new government, you have the opportunity to review this poor decision made by the previous government. Please listen to local experts and the extensive original master planning process to make sure that public funding is being spent most effectively to meet the health care needs of Albury-Wodonga, now and into the future.

I would like to BCC myself

Albury-Wodonga needs a single-site hospital

Tell the Health Minister to spend public money wisely!

Albury and Wodonga urgently need a new hospital - one single-site hospital. Existing hospital infrastructure is literally crumbling, there is a 20-60 bed shortage every day, and it’s dangerous to transfer critically unwell patients between two hospital sites.

In 2021, master planning with extensive consultation with experts, local clinicians, Albury-Wodonga Health and both the NSW and Victorian health departments recommended a new greenfield hospital for Albury-Wodonga. In late 2022, right before an election, the previous government announced a brownfield upgrade of the existing Albury Hospital instead, spending a whopping $558 million on a redevelopment that doesn’t meet current needs. The “masterplan” just released for this project doesn’t even have bed numbers and includes multiple unplanned and unfunded future stages.

The community, including the Border Medical Association, the Albury Base Hospital branch of the NSW Nurses and Midwives Association, and Better Border Health, is advocating for the originally recommended greenfield hospital to ensure both safe medical care and effective spending of public money.

A new government could make a new decision. You can help make sure that the NSW government isn't wasting millions on a poorly planned hospital redevelopment, and help our growing community to get the care we deserve.

Write to Minister Park now.

Albury-Wodonga needs a single-site hospital

Tell the Health Minister

Albury-Wodonga needs a single-site hospital!

Albury-Wodonga needs a single-site hospital

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