I’m backing our community: the Border region deserves a greenfield single-site, world-class hospital.   

The community is on board and has been fiercely campaigning for a greenfield single-site hospital. Many of us welcomed the Victorian and New South Wales Governments’ commitment to fund a re-development of the existing Albury Hospital site when it was first announced, but there remain serious concerns about the adequacy of this funding to deliver what we need. It is now clear that the two state governments’ plan will not deliver for our community.  

The population on the Border is growing rapidly, and by 2040 our hospital will need to service over 150,000 emergency presentations, 40,000 surgeries and 1,900 births every year.   

As an Independent, I’ve brought stakeholders together and advocated strongly to both State Governments and the Federal Government. These decision-makers must return to the negotiating table, because our region deserves better.  

Locals right across the border region have written to me and shared what a new world-class hospital on the Border would mean for them. You can read their stories here. 

I will never give up the fight for a properly funded single-site hospital for Albury Wodonga.    

Here in regional and rural Australia, the health needs of our communities are growing, but our health services are not getting the investment they need, leaving us with outdated, ageing and often dangerous infrastructure.  

The current funding system isn’t working for many rural and regional health services across Indi and regional Australia. The Commonwealth provides billions in funding to city hospitals, but we don’t see the same commitment to investment in rural health services.  

I’ll work to establish a dedicated $2 billion Building Rural Hospitals Fund, providing competitive and needs-based investment for new buildings, equipment and planning.  

This funding could deliver the investment demanded for projects like a new, greenfield single-site hospital for Albury Wodonga, capital renewal for the Bright Aged Care facility, help Tallangatta get the new main electrical transformer needed for their hospital, or re-develop Mansfield Hospital. Critical infrastructure like this is required across our regions and needs its own dedicated fund so health services in regional areas from Corryong to Mansfield, Wodonga to Bright, don’t get left behind. 

It’s about time we properly invested in the rural communities that feed, clothe and power the nation. 

Seeing a GP or specialist in our region should not be this difficult. Often, I hear from people on waiting lists simply for a GP appointment or traveling long distances to get specialist medical care.  

The solution is clear: we need more doctors, nurses, specialists and allied health workers in our region so we can get the care we need close to home. Successive governments have failed to invest in regional training for Australia’s health workforce and workforce shortages are crippling service delivery and putting existing workers under enormous strain.  

We know that health students who train in rural areas, and are from rural backgrounds, are more likely to work rurally when they graduate.  

Without local training opportunities, doctors, nurses and allied health workers are forced to leave our region to pursue their careers. The Rural Medical Pathway is a great opportunity to support people moving to work and train in the regions and something I would like to see expanded to support our health services.  

La Trobe University in Albury Wodonga offers medical school pathways but had over 400 applications for only a handful of places. We need $23 million to train more rural doctors, and $10 million to train more nurses and allied health workers, plus $52 million for 75 additional Commonwealth Supported Places for medicine, nursing and allied health in rural areas.

As a regional Independent, I’m working for Commonwealth funding for our rural universities – including La Trobe in Wodonga – to train more doctors, nurses and allied health workers.  

It’s not news to health students that placements are a requirement of study and are unpaid. Students are expected to work for free, which is especially tough in a cost-of-living crisis. This often leads to what’s called “placement poverty”.  

Courses like occupational therapy and physiotherapy require 1,000 hours of placement and require students to put a hold on paid work and incur travel and accommodation expenses. The huge financial burden is affecting their mental health and making it hard for them to finish study.  

Allied health services are essential to providing care to Indi residents– playing a big role in aged care, the NDIS, schools and hospitals. However, across Indi and around Australia, services are struggling in the face of workforce shortages.  

Regional and rural Australia is also experiencing unprecedented doctor shortages. Evidence shows that medical students that train in regional areas are more likely to stay there, but unpaid placements – sometimes requiring 2,000 hours – creating huge obstacles for these students.  

I strongly supported the new prac payments announced by the Government last year, to better support student teachers, nurses and social workers. However, placement poverty is affecting other healthcare students and prac payments must be expanded to include medical students and allied health students. The Government agreed to my amendments in 2024 to review the effectiveness of the payments after three years. But in the meantime, we need to urgently address workforce shortages and cost-of-living pressures for students studying medicine and allied health.