The new in Albury is inadequate for the Twin Cities and shows the need for a fresh hospital, the Border Medical Association's secretary says. or signup to continue reading Doctor Phillip Steele was commenting ahead of a community rally being held on Sunday, July 7, in Wodonga, where he will be among the speakers pushing for a pause on the plan to upgrade Albury hospital rather than build a new medical base. "The new emergency department is a way better place to work in for people that work there, the rooms are larger, the equipment is great, the set-up is good, but it's still too small for this region," Dr Steele said.
"It does not have the capacity to manage emergency presentations of Albury and Wodonga and the region, so it's unable to fulfil that single-site need and its work is frustrated by the inability of the staff to admit patients to the ward because there's not enough beds to put them in. Advanced life support paramedic Sam Burbidge, who will also speak at the rally, said while there was a "nice, new ED" ambulances were continuing to ramp. "What happens is the nurses and doctors do a wonderful job there in ED and get the patient stabilised, but then they need to be admitted to a ward bed and if there's no beds in the ward, that patient is stuck in the emergency department and then obviously if there are no beds in the emergency department the ambulance patients are stuck on stretchers," Ms Burbidge said.
"The problem comes from a lot of the time not having the capac.
