The Royal Flying Doctor Service

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DAY 316


Australia is 32 .8 times larger than the UK, we have told you that before.

Then, imagine this, you are out in the middle of nowhere, you’ve rolled your vehicle, and you are 300k’s or more away from any town or community, and the town may only have a couple of hundred or so people in it and no medical facilities.

If this say happened to be out in the bush your nearest hospital is 1000k’s away, and by road it would be torturous hours of corrugated rough roads and obstacles. Not to mention how long the journey may take.

Australia absolutely depends on The Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) a service that has been in existence since 1928 it is the combination of medicine, radio and Aviation that brought a lifeline to outback Australia.

Its not all Bronze bodies and surf boards, on the coast, yes that’s where the Majority of Austrlia’s population exists but its in the Rural and outback townships stations and communities where it is so important.

We spend a good couple of hours this morning researching and planning our trip up to Cape York, maps are all over the floor and the kitchen worktop, we are checking out the National Parks, the campsites and in particular road conditions. The key thing being that we are still intending on taking our trailer up to the Cape with us, but we still have to be sure that trailer will cooperate on the roads we intend to take. We have been told that it will be more than capable but we have said before, there is lots of information available to us, but it is good information that we struggle to find and it is the bad information that will trip us up.

So research is everything! We will plan possible stops on the way, working out how much mileage perhaps we can undertake each day. Bearing in mind we may be on rough, corrugated dirt tracks and although you can do a fair amount of mileage it is far more tiring on body and soul than driving on bitumen so some days we will not hammer out a lot of mileage, we just want to be able to take it easy, drive to the road conditions and admire the countryside that we are driving through.

There are several National Parks to see on the way to the Cape, again we will chose which we will stop off at.

At some point after booking a couple of campsites for the beginning of our journey we lose momentum and decide that it is time to go out and do something.

So to continue with how we started this blog for today, we decide that we will visit The Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS), which was the first comprehensive aerial medical organisation in the world and to this day remains unique for the range of primary health care and emergency services it provides and for the huge area of sparse population and climatic extremes over which it operates - 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Caroline and myself have been really lucky to have been able to experience “Outback” Australia, its harsh and very unforgiving, we have often wondered what it would have been like 30 years ago, even today not all area’s have bitumen sealed roads, which can be cut off in the wet weason, and on these huge sheep and cattle stations, which may be bigger than England itself, and who’ s closest neighbours may be 100’s of kilometers away, you can appreciate how isolated it can be.

The development of the Inland was in many ways made easier by the presence of the Flying Doctor. Previously, serious illness or accident often meant death and the inland holds many graves of people who might have lived had they been able to receive medical aid quickly enough

We have been aware of the RFDS service for a long time, having seen reference to it on television programs in England, however on our journey here, we started to notice “Landing strip” signs whilst we were crossing the Nullarbour back in April.

On nice straight roads a sign advises you that this is an emergency landing strip for the RFDS, but there is no control tower, no lighting, no nothing except for white markings on the road, so if medical assistance was needed on the Nullarbour which is 1192 Kilometres long, we know as we have driven it, the road would be closed, and let the plane land on the designated section of road, whilst they load the injured person into the plane to medivac them back to a hospital that could cope with the situation.

The RDFS also fly from Cairns to Cape York twice a week, to take their medical expertise to remote outback communities, giving medical examinations, women’s health, mental health and other associated preventative medicine, its not only emergency situations that they perform.

We nearly went to the RFDS centre in Katherine but for some reason that I can’t remember we never got around to it, so today we thought we would go and see it whilst we were in Cairns.

The Visitors centre is sited in a small suburb of Edgehill, we paid our $6.00 each and went in. Like most centres you always have to walk through the shop first, but hey that’s just the way it goes.

The exceptionally helpful lady (Lynn) said that the centre’s exhibits are broken in to 3 area’s Aviation, Medicine and Communications, and credit where credit is due it is fantastic.

We sat to watch a 15 minute movie to start with, recognising many of the place names that we have already driven through such as Normanton or Adels Grove and incidentally there was one person from Adels Grove that was on the film that we in fact recognise from our time there.

There is a great display of medical equipment from the 1920’s that were donated by a doctor, they look quite barbaric, things like the bone cutters and teeth pullers but it all had to start somewhere.

Outside there is an RFDS Aircraft that came out of active service in 1978 (I think), you can go and sit inside it and it’s quite tiny, certainly for a Pilot, Doctor, Nurse and Patient on a stretcher.

The final section was communication; we read how communication was virtually impossible. Basic telephone and telegraph links existed only near larger towns, radio communication was practically unknown and neighbours could be hundreds of miles away.

The RFDS put together standard medical kits that are sent out to remote stations, each kit is identical, and each item in the kits is labelled with a number, so when someone in a remote location radio’s the Doctor on call at RFDS instead of sending a plane they see if it can be treated over the radio, and using the Body Part identify, the doctor can talk through “Where it hurts” and what numbered item should be used in the medical kit.
The numbered items can then be replenished when RFDS flies up to that remote location.

John Flynn the founder of the RFDS met a young electrical engineer Alan Treager who realised that a big problem within the development of Reliable Radio communication was “Power Generation” and set about inventing a hand-cranked generator, a cheap and durable solution which provided sufficient power, but required two operators - one for the generator, and another for the radio itself.

However Alan Traeger found that it was too dificult for an operator to use one hand to turn the handle while the other hand was used to operate the Morse key. Traeger overcame the problem by equipping the generator with pedals and so the famous pedal wireless was created. There was an original pedal powered generator at the visitors centre museum,which was so simple but was the key the the success of the RFDS in the early years.

Talking to Lynn, she asked us how long we have been in Australia, and we give her a brief run down of our adventure so far, we explain about our rented house in Cairns and that we intend to set off for Cape York as of the 1st October and we are doing some fact finding to make sure that we can get up there, Lynn tells us that her Husband has done tours in the past up to the Cape and may be the man to give us the advice we are looking for, so she picked up the phone and gave him a call.

Her Husband (John) is on his 3 days leave, but kindly sepaks to me as I ask as many qesutions as I can think of, and for the moment has been a great source of information, one thing he does say is October is the best month to travel up to the Cape.

In all we think the RFDS visit was superb, and sadly think that people only appreciate it when they need to use the service, which is free to all Australians, tourists have access to the facility as well, however be aware that costs will be sought through your travel insurance.

I asked Lynn about the RFDS’s main source of income and she told us that it is still from the Federal Government, donations and bequeathments, its an expensive operation to run, Cairns has 3 Aircraft (1 emergency) and around 60 aircraft throughout Australia.

Now that some aboriginal communities have become alcohol free, it has reduced the number of Calls the RFDS get, however 40% of the patients are Aboriginal in Queensland alone, but you have to appreciate how remote some of these communities are and this is there only source of medical assistance.

The RFDS website is quite interesting, I was flicking around it whilst writing this blog and picked up a section on Snake Bites:
Of the world's 25 most deadly snakes, Australia is home to 21 of them. The perceived threat of snake bites is one of the most common fears for people planning to travel in Outback Australia, especially overseas tourists.
Contrary to popular belief, however, snake bites are not a major cause of death for people in Australia. In 1997, six people died of snake bites (Australian Bureau of Statistics).
It is important for everyone to know what action to take after a real or suspected snake bite. The action taken immediately is crucial for the patient's recovery.
Our visit was great and we really enjoyed it, and we appreciate how vital it is, we thank Lynn for her excellent customer service and set off back to Bayview.
We arrive back at about 3.30, and eat the sandwiches we packed, have a cup of tea and a bit of a relax, reading the papers etc.
Our evening meal was warmed up curry from the other day, then we prepared to go to the cinema to see the film “Pelham 123”, with Denzil Washington and John Travolta. We took a bottle of water with us so we were not tempted to buy drink and sweets at the cinema.
The film was excellent, there were a few times when you could anticipate what was going to happen and thus gripped the seat, we really wanted to see this film and thoroughly enjoyed it, especially as it will not be long before we are back on the road and not able to catch a good movie.
We arrive back at 11.30, check emails and then go straight to bed.
It was not long before we were both fast asleep.
Until another exciting day tomorrow, goodnight!

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Photos

Australia Map
Queensland marked in Greenwith 8 RFDS Bases

Body Part Chart
Standard Body Part Chart, so someone can describe exactly where pain is over the radio

RFDS
Standard Medical Kits

Tiny Inside
For Pilot, Doctor, Nurse and Patient

John Flynn
On the Australian 20 Dollar Bill

Cape York
To Raise Money somebody drove this 1000, K's each way to Cape York