A NSW charity that routinely has to turn away rural hospital patients has been caught in the middle of an ugly pre-election dispute between Labor and the Nationals.
The Macquarie Home Stay provides accommodation for rural patients who travel to Dubbo's hospital, but the facility has been at full capacity for years.
The hospital cares for takes in patients from towns all over Western NSW, which often lack facilities such as cancer wards.
The local Nationals MP Dugald Saunders has blamed Labor for "ripping" $2.5 million from the charity, which likely Labor candidate Josh Black described as "completely false".
"Do not try and mislead the community about cancer patient accommodation by saying the federal Labor party took money away and we're here to save the day," Cr Black said.
"Politicising accommodation for cancer patients and to drag these poor community members into his campaign is shameful."
The charity applied for the $2.5 million through round six of the Better Building Regions Fund, which federal Labor scrapped on the grounds it was a pork-barrelling fund.
Even before the round was over, federal Nationals MP Mark Coulton promised that Macquarie Home Stay would get the money if they won the 2022 federal election.
The money would have been spent on building more rooms.
Mr Black said the Nationals had made the federal funding conditional on a Coalition election victory, and were now blaming Labor for not delivering.
When asked if Labor should have found a replacement fund, Mr Black said Macquarie Home Stay should apply through a "proper" grant application process.
Dubbo MP Dugald Saunders walked back his comments about the "cuts", but said Labor should have matched the Nationals support for Macquarie Home Stay.
"Theoretically they haven't 'cut' funding they promised. But they have always talked about, through their candidate, supporting Macquarie Home Stay," Mr Saunders said.
"What we've seen since the election and since their budget, was a complete lack of support for Macquarie Home Stay."
Mr Saunders said the state Coalition would step in to fund the $2.5 million expansion in lieu of federal funding.
Mr Coulton distanced himself from the "cuts" comments.
"To be clear, I have never said that Labor had cut funding for the Macquarie Home Stay expansion," he said.
However Mr Coulton said if the state Coalition hadn't stepped in to fund the Macquarie Home Stay, they would have to wait for one of Labor's replacement funds.
Labor has yet to release guidelines for the Growing Regions and the Precincts and Partnerships programs being launched instead of the Building Better Regions Fund.
He said this would have meant lengthy delays.
Macquarie Home Stay managing director Rod Crowfoot said they were happy to work with both sides of politics if it meant they could help more rural patients.
"For us, we're looking at the human element," Mr Crowfoot said.
"The people who are most impacted are the unwell who stay with us, and that's not a political issue."
