Tuesday, 15 October 2024

Albury Wodonga Health

Bill TILLEY (Benambra) (19:11): (857) I wish to raise a matter for the attention of the Minister for Health. The action I seek is for the minister to reject any business case for Victoria’s $225 million investment in Albury hospital’s $558 million makeover unless it meets the number of beds and operating theatres set out in the 2022 clinical services plan. Minister, you have to make a decision for the people that you grew up with. The minister is a local. She knows that. We have had many discussions. You need to talk honestly with the people you grew up with.

Back on 5 April 2023 deputy secretary of health infrastructure Chris Hotham wrote to his New South Wales equivalent confirming Victoria’s funding was contingent on a business case. The minister now has that business case. I believe it does not meet our needs, and it is a far cry from what was promised. In October 2022 the then premiers of New South Wales and Victoria promised a single-site world-class hospital for Albury Wodonga Health. It was all based on a clinical services plan, basically an assessment of future needs for beds and theatres, concocted in the months leading up to that announcement. But it was version 2.0 of the plan. The original and, some would say, best plan was approved by the minister’s department in 2021 and was validated by the Victorian Health Building Authority, but the cost of meeting the number of beds and operating theatres in that plan did not fit the two premiers’ budgets. It was gutted to meet the premiers’ needs for an election promise.

Now we find that we are likely to get even less. It is not one site as promised; it is still going to be two. A 10-storey medical tower is now cut to six storeys, and there are just 80 new beds, but not before 2029, when Albury Wodonga Health start every day 50 to 70 beds short of what they need. Planning for the Wodonga hospital says they need an additional 40 beds by 2026. A multistorey car park was cut down to two decks. The Premier promised a helipad, which is gone. Ten operating theatres were slashed to six and a shell. Already the upgraded emergency department is overwhelmed with current demand, let alone the extra 29,000 presentations that will soon shift to Albury when you close the Wodonga emergency department, and all because the money is not enough.

It was never enough. I believe when the two premiers made their ‘future faking’ promise back in 2022 that state bureaucrats already knew the money was not enough, even for that modest promise. The minister, I believe, was hoodwinked by all the departments, but by August 2023 the executive steering committee had come to the same conclusion. In February this year that committee costed the project at $621.5 million, yet ministers from that meeting say the business case must be limited to the $558 million election promise.