Clearly there is no beast more remote from the communities they are paid to serve, albeit indirectly, than a government bureaucrat.
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Examples of the species under the control of Spring and Macquarie streets appear to be even more disconnected from reality.
The 250,000-plus residents of the wider Border region clearly want a new hospital.
The fractured, significantly inadequate bricks and mortar that for now is supposed to deliver an adequate public health service won't do, nor will the patch-up job that the Victorian and NSW governments are continuing to impose on our community.
It has been clear for a long time that there is simply no political will by the respective state governments to do what is right and do what they really should be obligated to do and build the kind of billion-dollar, purpose-built facility on a greenfield site that will actually serve us for decades ahead.
Given its track record of obfuscation and negligence over several years now, it's no surprise that the Victorians continue to fail to deliver.
But at least we can pinpoint those supposedly responsible for the bad-taste joke that is the $558 million patch-job on the existing Albury hospital.
Communities can still - even if it hasn't gotten us far to this point - lobby and put pressure on politicians, can force the case for accountability when the facts and the figures reveal the inadequacy of their response.
But the revelation that some in the state bureaucracies are putting obstacles in front of efforts to get the funding we require is deeply concerning.
The Victorians said money for redeveloping the Albury hospital could not be justified within the context of the government's decision to drop the Commonwealth Games.
That's right. Our public health needs were put in the same basket.
We can't afford mountain bike riding in Ballarat, so how could we possibly provide essential health care for the sick citizens of Albury-Wodonga?
Correspondence from a NSW Health bureaucrat said, in essence, "accept the dollars you're getting, Albury Wodonga Health, there's nothing more".
That's totally unacceptable and such interference must stop.
