It also highlights that significant funding to get the project underway is long overdue, as Edward River Council’s CEO Jack Bond has discovered.
A front page story in the Pastoral Times last month (May 23, 2025) under the headline ‘Council Push For New Hospital’, explained how ERC had adopted a Position Statement which calls for a new and improved hospital as part of a broader health precinct.
Less than a week later, Mr Bond and his family opened an envelope which had been placed in the Rotary Club of Deniliquin’s time capsule by his grandmother, Sonia Rapley, which was raised on Australia Day this year.
To their great interest, a copy of the Pastoral Times from July 18, 2000 was in the envelope. The front page headline from 25 years ago read: ‘Push for new hospital’.
“It was almost a carbon copy of the May 23, 2025 edition. The page lay-out was the same and the headline was almost identical,” Mr Bond said.
“What this highlights is that health advocates recognised a quarter of a century ago that Deniliquin needs a new hospital. Yet in the ensuing years nothing has been done.
“This surely indicates the need for swift government action to fix the anomaly.
“Over the past 25 years there has been massive funding – hundreds of millions of dollars – for other Riverina hospitals at Wagga, Albury and Griffith.
“But Deniliquin has continually missed out. It is time this was fixed.”
Interestingly, many of the issues that suggested a new hospital was needed in Deniliquin have not changed in the past 25 years.
In 2000, the region was under control of the Greater Murray Area Health Service (GMAHS).
Its Network Nine chair Jan Kennedy explained how a new hospital was preferred rather than redevelopment of the present site, and how the hospital was “badly in need of a revamp” and that the Deniliquin facility had been “allowed to deteriorate” while other hospitals in the region had “secured funding to take them into the future”.
Mr Bond says we are 25 years down the track and our community, as well as health authorities, continue to accept the indisputable fact that a new hospital is needed in Deniliquin.
“It was obviously identified in the years of GMAHS, and now the same issue arises in the latest Clinical Services Plan, undertaken by the Murrumbidgee Local Health District.
“Edward River Council strongly encourages the New South Wales Government to acknowledge that Deniliquin has been neglected for decades and this must be quickly rectified,” said Mr Bond.
The Position Statement adopted unanimously by ERC at its May meeting calls for a new facility that can:
• Support a broader range of medical and allied health services
• Attract and retain skilled health professionals
• Integrate with surrounding Local Health Districts and private providers
• Respond effectively to emergency and acute care needs
• Cater to a diverse population across Deniliquin and neighbouring areas.
The Position Statement can be found on council’s website - https://www.edwardriver.nsw.gov.au/Council/News/Media-Releases/ERC-Push-for-New-Hospital.
For further information, please contact Edward River Council on 03 5898 3000.
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