08/12/2025
We as Social Workers living on the border of Vic and NSW are very concerned about the dire state of affairs that we are in the midst of regarding Albury Wodonga Health (AWH)
For those of us who work in the mental health field we have heard years of disclosures from distressed staff of AWH both past and present and seen firsthand their concern for the way this hospital is/has been run for some time.
Staff speak of feeling disgruntled, unvalued, and bullied holding onto the fear of speaking out regarding conditions they are seeing progressively deteriorating in front of them whilst trying to continue to work in these trying conditions.
Clinical staff are continuing to work under enormous pressure with a hospital that has inadequate facilities, far too few beds, very long waitlists for surgeries, regular ambulance ramping seeing extremely sick people waiting at times up to 6 hours for help in a parked onsite ambulance, safety concerns with transferring patients between campuses, a number of code yellows, whilst these highly trained staff watch each day the frustrations this has on both patients and colleagues knowing full well there is insufficient space on the existing Albury hospital site for the necessary expansion we so desperately need.
They are concerned for the welfare of people as we too should be also as clinicians and members of the public!
Why are we in this situation? One reason is because Albury Wodonga is an area that has had an enormous influx of people since the start of Covid 19. We are smack bang between Melbourne and Sydney where many many families relocated to during and after Covid 19 once able to work remotely.
Of course, it made more financial sense for relocation for them...totally understandable however the hospital "already inadequate" could not cope with this influx.
As such there has been considerable debate from all concerned regarding a new greenfield hospital to adequately cope with our population rather than fixing up the current brownfield hospital.
It seems that the original recommendations made in 2021 in the Clinical Services Plan and in subsequent master-planning processes, involving clinicians and health departments, originally recommended a new single-site hospital on a greenfield (undeveloped) site as the safest and most cost-effective solution for the region's future needs.
However, the government decision was made in late 2022, whereby the Victorian and NSW governments announced a co-funded $558 million project to redevelop the existing Albury campus instead.
Since this announcement there has been much community and clinical opposition: Many in the community, including the Border Medical Association and advocacy group Better Border Health, have argued that the brownfield plan is inadequate, designed for budget rather than purpose, and will not meet current or future demands for beds, operating theatres, and other critical services.
Well, I for one am concerned in hearing this - here we are we have a hospital system in fact the only cross-border public health service in the country getting inadequate government attention, being subjected to a governance who appear to be more interested in saving money rather than focus of what is actually best for people going forward!!!
I for one would rather listen to the experts that deliver the very services on the ground - yes these are the clinical staff members that truly know what is going on and are trying to speak out about this.
The current state of this issue is that the project is proceeding with the Albury campus redevelopment, in fact some construction steps are already underway. It is of note that Wodonga Council and other groups continue to lobby for the original greenfield plan to be reconsidered.
I'm concerned seeing $$$$ spent already for eg on the new ED tbh this hasn't made a bit of difference to the problems listed above...is this a picture of what redevelopment will look like,? still inadequate. Isn't that an absolute waste of taxpayers' money???
Surely our regional area deserves better than this???
I for one would prefer to see $$$ going to a more sustainable option going forward to adequately care for our generations of families here into the future.
But no instead we are seeing penny pinching, ridiculous suggestions coming out from AWH governance eg. The beds in Nolan House in.pt mental health. facility were suggested for use for medical patients during code yellows!!! Really??
All of this is creating further disgruntlement and angst among both the community and of course medical staff.
It is no wonder there has been clinicians speaking out regarding these concerns. And their voices are getting stronger!
What is shocking is that one Doctor a well-known trusted surgeon in particular has been sacked for speaking out by the current board.
Seems free speech is no longer an option in this country even voicing concerns for the welfare of people's very lives!
We as a community are horrified and disgusted to hear that Dr Stuchbery spoke out about his concerns regarding AWH to the board and as such was shut down and ruthlessly sacked after 27 years of practice serving our community! Dr Stuchbery is a fine surgeon who has saved many many lives on both sides of the border treating both public and private patients. John was sacked whilst many women were/are on his waitlist for breast surgery treatment! Imagine the distress this has caused to very ill people?
We as Social Workers should be horrified about this at a community level and of course as an obvious social injustice issue!!
Please see the below video where we have Dr Amanda Cohn and Dr John Stuchbery speaking out to gain more public awareness of this dreadful situation - thank goodness for their voices at this time.
I am sharing this video with the hope to get many more Social Workers, Psychologists, and other allied health professionals behind this situation. Please share widely.
Hey power of the people!
https://www.medicalrepublic.com.au/why-an-mp-called-for-a-hospital-ceo-to-be-fired/121779
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-09-25/john-stuchbery-albury-hospital-redevelopment/105813170
https://newsmoco.com/top/nsw-health-chief-vows-to-address-albury-wodonga-hospital-crisis/
