Neighbours Hear Doctors’ Calls

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30983, 12 February 1966, Page 2

Neighbours Hear Doctors’ Calls

IB V

TERRY

McGOVERNEI

It would be silly to ask any New Zealand woman if she would like her private consultations with her doctor broadcast over the radio. Obviously the answer would be an angry glare and an emphatic “no.”

But there are thousands of Australians who know that whenever they consult a doctor most of their neighbours will be listening to every word of the conversation. The chances are that a few tourists will also be eavesdropping. Those who have to bend themselves to this (at times) embarrassing situation are the people of the vast, lonely, elusive, unpredictable Australian outback, who rely on the Royal Flying Doctor Service for their medical care. One of the 14 bases of the service spanning the three million square mile “island” is at Broken Hill, a hot, dusty mining town in the far west of New South Wales. Big Practice From there two doctors look after about 8000 people scattered over an area of 480,000 square miles—almost five times that of New Zealand. They live on remote sheep and cattle stations, some so large that it takes up to a week to traverse them in a Landrover. This means that the most distant people live nearly 500 miles from their doctor and even the closest—about 60 miles away—are eight hours’ travelling time by road from Broken Hill, if an unformed track of red dust and saltbush may be so called. At almost every homestead in the outback the most important piece of equipment is the radio transceiver and every person in the house knows how to use it.

Its principal purpose is to contact the flying doctor, but in more recent years it has been “commandeered” by the Department of Education to provide lessons for outback children through the School of the Air. It also serves the social

function of enabling housewives to natter to their neighbours on the next property perhaps 100 miles away. Twice a day, almost every day, the flying doctor conducts his medical clinics over the radio. The conversations are heard by everyone on the network, and it is. only by skilful questioning that the doctor is able to minimise the embarrassment that people might at times feel by having to describe the symptoms of their complaints. Home Chest

At every homestead there is also a medical chest containing about 50 articles from ordinary bandages to the latest drugs. Each article is numbered and by telling the patient the number, the doctor is able to prescribe treatment for whatever the complaint may be. The radio clinic is the most important side of the doctor’s work. The other glamorised side—dashing through blinding duststorms to uplift a dangerously ill patient from an unattended death bed —'is more the exception than the rule.

No-one is left without personal attention if the doctor thinks it necessary. It is then that he flies to the homestead and brings the patient in to hospital. Because of flying regulations, the doctor seldom flies to the outback at night. Safety has to be the first consideration when a decision about a night trip has to be made. A series of strategically placed airfields equipped with night flying navigational aids is now being set up. When this is completed the vast outback will be almost as safe as any suburban home. Founded on a tradition of community service and aid for the helpless, the service finds ways other than by charging higher fees to offset spiralling operating costs. In spite of increasing costs the R.F.D.S. is about to em-

bark on a huge expansion programme costing more than £1,800,000. Most of this will go on new aircraft which will be as safe but faster and more serviceable than the existing threeengined Drovers. It would seem a lot of money to spend on medical services for a relatively small proportion of the nation’s population, but the founder of the R.F.D.S. would be the first to applaud the move were he alive today.