Hunter MPs have toured the John Hunter Hospital's new acute services building, but they are keeping mum on when the next stage of the expansion will be funded.
When open, the John Hunter's new seven-storey building will deliver specialist world-class healthcare for communities in Newcastle, the Hunter and northern NSW.
The $890 million structure is the first stage of a massive redevelopment of the hospital site designed to help cater to a growing region and its future generations.
Minister for the Hunter Yasmin Catley and Newcastle MP Tim Crakanthorp were given a tour of the new facility on Thursday.
The NSW government committed an extra $55 million in additional funding to complete the new John Hunter North facility, but Ms Catley said she would not be "letting anything out of the bag" when it came to the funding for the second major phase of construction.
It is understood plans for the next stage, an expansion development worth $900 million, are with the NSW government but yet to be accepted.
"This is one of the fastest-growing regions in NSW and we do need to keep pace," Ms Catley said.
The minister said she was fighting for the region but stopped short of committing to make winning the funding an issue for the upcoming NSW election.
"I can tell you one thing, there is no one who is more committed than the two people standing here who are advocating at that table [in Cabinet]," Ms Catley said.
"We bang the table.
"We are absolutely advocating for the funding that this region needs."
When asked if she is prepared to make the funding an election issue, Ms Catley said she "pushes it all the time" but "what I'm not going to do is let anything out of the bag."
Executive general manager at John Hunter Hospital Julie Tait said there has been a lot of planning happening for the hospital's future.
"We are fortunate in our executive leadership team to have some very inspirational staff and team members who are looking to the future," Ms Tait said.
"The campus lends itself to so much. We are very lucky with the parcel of land that we have got, there are lots of opportunities with this campus.
"We have talked about a possible expansion in the future, but we are focusing on what we need to do now."
Ms Tait said operational commissioning of the new building was under way, including the fit-out of equipment and orientation of staff.
"It's a very exciting 12-week period where we bring our staff over," she said.
"We trial different processes, we test things, we figure out configurations of rooms.
"We are busy identifying what equipment needs to be moved where and we are seeing our staff moving over and starting the orientation process."
Ms Tait said the process will be made easier through the digitisation of patient records.
"Not only do we have wonderful facilities, we have a state-of-the-art equipment where we can record patients progress and monitor it," she said.
"It's very exciting for the people of Newcastle."
Ms Tait said the new facility will open up capacity at the existing John Hunter South building.
"It is like moving from a small house into a much bigger house," she said.
"We are coming up with plans with the opportunities to expand spaces in that facility.
"We have a lot of movement to get patients over safely and that is the number one priority, but it does open up some space."
One space she said they were excited about expanding is the radiography footprint at John Hunter South.
"This is the biggest generational change I have seen in my lifetime."
