The number falls well short of the 10,000 needed to make parliament debate the issue, but petition organiser Catherine Pierce is determined to do whatever it takes to dump the name Wagga Rural Referral Hospital.

“I told the (parliament) speaker if I have to get 20,000, 30,000, 40,000 signatures I will keep going until they change the name,” Mrs Pierce said.

Mrs Pierce has been door-knocking at weekends asking residents to sign the petition, which is also on the counters of a growing number of Wagga businesses.

“I have had people chase me down the street to sign it,” Mrs Pierce said.

“That is the level of desperation.

“When I talk about the referral hospital, people say ‘ you mean the feral hospital’ – I get a lot of that.

“I know so many people hate it, because they tell me.”

Member for Wagga Daryl Maguire confirmed the petition was before the government and said he had requested a meeting with health minister Brad Hazzard “to take those concerns to the top”.

But he also said he was concerned about the cost of renaming all the rural referral hospitals across the state.

Mrs Pierce said the people who changed the name from Wagga Base Hospital should pay for the re-badging.

“Mr Maguire asked me what I thought of the hospital; I said it was a beautiful hospital, but I hate the name,” Mrs Pierce said.