Royal Flying Doctors

Back from the rock and a few hours to kill before our flight to Cairns we dropped into the Royal Flying Doctors Service (RFDS) Museum. The Flying Doctors, remember the program well yeah ?

The RFDS is a registered charity but does receive some funding from the government. 40% is covered by grants and the service relies heavily on donations. The service is free for all Australian residents and the insured traveller.

As well as the emergency service they also provide other services such as clinics in remote places, a gp service over the radio and replenishing medical chests. They cover over 20 million km per year and have a fleet of 43 planes with each aircraft costing $6 million. Each plane needs replacing every 10/15 years! It started in 1928 with an aircraft (De Havilland DH50) hired from Quantas at a cost of 2 shillings per mile. The landing strips they use all over the country are owned by landowners/farmers. It is the landowner's responsibility to maintain these strips at their own expense. Strips are either lit or unlit, if unlit they can not be used at night and that patient would have to get to the nearest lit strip or wait till daylight, and that could be several 100 kms (not good in the case of the old snake bite where every second counts).