It might sound complicated, but the result is the South East Regional Hospital’s carers accommodation project.

Community Carers Accommodation South East was one of 67 infrastructure projects funded by the National Stronger Regions Fund out of the total 479 applications vying for a share of $126.5million.

To put this in perspective, it’s just a little more than the government gives Telstra each year.

It seems a fine balance of both public, primarily federal government, and private funding will be the future of many infrastructure projects in rural areas for the foreseeable future, and the Bega Valley is showing it is willing to get things going.

Top level public servants warned the federal government's new funding arrangements to health, leading to potentially $300million being cut from NSW hospitals by 2017-18, did not recognise the additional cost pressures of technology and ageing to the health sector.

Despite the Total State Sector Accounts figures showing the final NSW government’s surplus for the 2015-16 financial year was $4.7billion, their name is glaringly absent from the list of carers accommodation donors.

Added to this announcement, citizen-owned assets are being sold off left, right and centre, even though high-profile experts are warning their predictions of future demand are off.

Australian Medical Association NSW branch president Brad Frankum said before this year’s state budget, the first from treasurer Gladys Berejiklian, current projections of rising demand on hospital services are being underestimated.  

Combined with funding uncertainty from the federal government putting further strain on state governments to meet the rising demand on the health system and we have an ever-increasing problem.

Despite uncertainty, the construction of carers accommodation, the hard work of the hospital auxiliary and other groups have proven that state government funding is not necessary 100 per cent of the time.