Albury Wodonga Health
Mr QUILTY (Northern Victoria) (17:51): (1910) My adjournment matter tonight is for the Minister for Health. Last week saw the release of the Victorian budget, and I cannot tell you the level of disappointment that was experienced in Wodonga and Albury. The border community has been lobbying for funding for a new hospital to cater for the growing demands on the existing facilities at the split campus. Our medical staff and health workers are struggling under the conditions. They can no longer support the community that needs and uses Albury Wodonga Health. The hospital had a code brown called in January 2022, and there have been more code yellows called than I care to recall since. Elective surgery has been scaled back, and waitlists have blown out. Emergency department presentations have increased, presentations are for more serious conditions and admissions to the emergency department are on the increase. Stories are circulating amongst the community of the experience of patients who have had awful, hours-long wait times just to get through the admission process before they can even be triaged to see a doctor.
Since the budget release the community has come together and created a Better Border Health: Standing up for Albury-Wodonga group to highlight the urgency needed in finalising the design and completing construction of a new single-site regional hospital for Wodonga-Albury, preferably in North Wodonga just off the freeway. This weekend I along with many of my constituents will be attending a public rally in support of Better Border Health. The rally has the full support the Border Medical Association, with them calling on residents to turn out in significant numbers to make the case. The action I seek is for the health minister to attend this public rally taking place this Sunday, 15Â May, at 11Â am at Gateway Lakes in Wodonga with me to listen to the concerns of local health workers and patients and to find out firsthand about the need for major improvements to the Wodonga-Albury hospital situation.