In the Central Western Daily on Friday she was slated for suggesting Orange Base Hospital had an “abundance of staff” which could be utilised by both cities.

Mrs Fardell said some specialists and allied health workers in Orange should be placed on a roster system to travel to Dubbo when needed, the newspaper reported.

Among Mrs Fardell’s critics was The Nationals’ MP for Orange, Russell Turner, who termed the independent MP’s comments

“ignorant” and demanded she apologise.

On October 1, as NSW health minister Carmel Tebbutt toured Dubbo Base Hospital, Mrs Fardell repeated community reports that its patients were being lifted by

helicopter to Orange at great expense.

The Dubbo MP said she had “grave concerns” that the transfers were aimed at justifying “an abundance of staff” at Orange Base.

Soon after the still cash-strapped Greater Western denied Dubbo Base was being allowed to run down, while admitting that intensive care patients were being taken to Orange.

After repeated requests by the Daily Liberal to explain, it eventually confirmed the intensive care unit at Orange had been upgraded to level five, akin to those of major metropolitan hospitals, which “can deliver high level intensive care for extended periods of time and are defined by the availability of specialists in intensive care, and a variety of other support services in the hospital”.

Dubbo, Bathurst and Broken Hill hospitals had level four intensive care units and had been instructed on an “interim” basis to move on patients on life support for more than seven days, the area health service revealed.

In response, Mrs Fardell said she did not oppose the Orange upgrade, but dismissed any assumption that the Dubbo hospital did not warrant attention.

“Despite some creative number crunching by GWAHS, it is Dubbo that actually services an area of far greater need and numbers,”she said.

“We have a huge unreported Indigenous population and a known catchment of 170,000 people. Among these there is a huge problem with chronic diseases such as diabetes.”

Mrs Fardell accused bureaucrats of not knowing Dubbo and its role in the region.

“I sometimes think these bureaucrats take the view that we are just being parochial and we need to get over ourselves . . . when in reality they have completely lost touch,”she said.

In the Central Western Daily on Friday, Mrs Fardell stressed she was not criticising health workers in Orange.

“It’s not good enough for my constituents to travel to Orange when they could have been treated in Dubbo,” she said.

Health Services Union spokesperson Gerard Hayes insisted in the article there wasn’t anywhere in the State “where there’s an abundance of personnel”.

Despite a promise last week by Greater Western chief executive Danny O’Connor that Dubbo Base Hospital will “have its day”, Mrs Fardell has not retracted her concerns about it.

Meanwhile, Orange awaits the completion of its new hospital that will include radiotherapy equipment keenly sought by Dubbo.

Earmarked for the hospital grounds is the accommodation facility for cancer patients called CareWest Lodge, which scored $1.32 million in Federal Government support recently.

Late last week the Greater Western Centre for Rural and Remote Education was announced with its “hub” at Orange Base Hospital.

During her visit to Dubbo this month, Ms Tebbutt protested that she did not have time to visit Parkes and Forbes where residents have been waiting for the State Government to honour its promise to build new health facilities.