States Urged to Agree on Cross-border Health Authority

The Federal Health Minister has said that he would prefer not step in to fast-track a merger between Albury-Wodonga's health services

The Federal Health Minister has said that he would prefer not step in to fast-track a merger between Albury-Wodonga's health services.

This idea was proposed during a meeting with Tony Abbott and Goulburn Murray politicians yesterday.

A decade of talks between the New South Wales and Victorian governments has still not revealed a common plan towards working of the health services on both sides of the border work as one.

Mr Abbott states that the must be resolved within six months.

He said, "I would rather not [fast-track a merger] because I would rather the states did their jobs properly ... they did agree back in 2003 ... to provide this cross-border authority. Some progress has been made, but it has been slow."

However health professionals on the border has said that they do not see how the Commonwealth's intervention will help.

Albury doctor Scott Giltrap has been lobbying for the merger.

"We have had no impact from the Federal Government over the last decade while the two state governments have been arguing about it and I don't think the way our politics are structured at the moment, I don't think they have the capacity ... [to] make commonsense or is sensible," he said.

Source-Medindia
NLA