Wodonga mayor Ron Mildren says it is "very concerning" Albury Wodonga Health is unable to say whether it will participate in his council's health summit.
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AWH's chair Jonathon Green was asked by the council and lobby group Better Border Health at his organisation's annual meeting on Tuesday, December 12, if the medical service would partake in the March gathering.
"At this stage we've only recently been made aware of the intent of the health summit," Mr Green said.
"This is early in planning and as more information is understood, we'll assess what role we'll take to ensure a meaningful contribution is made."
Cr Mildren, who first publicly raised the summit concept in October, was left disappointed by the response, which also saw a question about whether AWH would urge health ministers to attend the event.
"Clearly the objectives of the summit are to try and get a comprehensive and better Border health outcome, yet the prevarication about whether or not they are going to support it or participate is very concerning," Cr Mildren said.
"It's such a simple question, the answer should have been 'yes, we're going to participate' and the answer should have been 'we will encourage the various ministers to all attend'."
Better Border Health representative Michelle Cowan noted the refusal to commit to the summit contrasted with the new AWH strategic plan launched at the annual meeting that stressed the organisation's willingness to embrace the community and be transparent.
"It simply beggars belief that they would not take up this opportunity with gusto," Ms Cowan said.
"This is a great opportunity to hear and speak directly to the community that they serve about the needs, the aspirations and quite frankly the evidence behind the growth in demand for health services and be responsive to that."
Speaking to The Border Mail after the annual meeting, AWH chief executive Bill Appleby said the organisation was officially notified of the summit a fortnight ago.
"Apart from actually reading it in your newspaper, we weren't necessarily aware of it up until two weeks ago," Mr Appleby said.
"We've only been contacted a couple of weeks ago about it and it's very embryonic in its thinking and structure.
"Once there's more meat on the bones and an understanding of exactly what this summit is going to be, what its objectives are, how it's going to be structured, then we will obviously evaluate how we can meaningfully contribute into that summit.
"Given that we are the biggest health service in the Hume region I'd expect that we would have some significant involvement."
Cr Mildren was also upset AWH did not allow television or newspaper photographers inside the annual meeting.
"It was extremely disappointing that the media weren't allowed to bring TV cameras and cameras into the meeting," he said.
"We should be having full transparency of these sort of events, it's a public hospital or public health service, we should be having all the transparency that we can get into it."
Mr Appleby cited it being a "security detail and normal protocol not to allow cameras in".
Ms Cowan criticised the meeting being held during business hours, questions not being permitted from the floor and an RSVP required when the venue, The Cube, was more than half empty.
Mr Appleby said the timing of the meeting was related to the tabling of the annual report in Victorian Parliament which required it be held at a certain time and the other matters were typical AGM requirements.
