Premier Gladys Berejiklian, who made the announcement on Friday, said the redevelopment project was expected to get under way in 2019.

The master planning for the site also includes a location for a new Tumut ambulance station in the future.

Health Minister Brad Hazzard, who accompanied Ms Berejiklian to Tumut, said this rebuild would mean more local patients could receive the care they need closer to home, which also reduces the stress on family and caregivers.

“An added bonus will be that new facilities may also assist in attracting skilled health professionals to move to the region as has often been the case in other regional areas when hospitals have been redeveloped,” Mr Hazzard said.

Geoff Pritchard, a Snowy Valleys councillor and medical doctor, believes Mr Hazzard is right about the potential of a new hospital to attract new medical professionals to the town.

Dr Pritchard described said the Premier’s announcement was good news, and that a new hospital was certainly needed.

However, he said what was needed even more urgency was more medical practitioners in Tumut.

He said the bulk of surgical procedures being carried out at the hospital were completed by surgeons and anaesthetists who travelled from Wagga.

Dr Pritchard said had had spoken to the Health Minister about this issue during the opening, with Mr Hazzard offering to speak to him further about it.

Having more surgery performed at Tumut would also relieve the pressure on Wagga Base Hospital, he said.

“We used to take a significant workload from Wagga Base,” Dr Pritchard said.

“We could definitely lighten the load on Wagga again in the future.”

Dr Pritchard believes that medical professionals should be appointed to regional health services, not to individual hospitals.