AUSTRALIA’S FLYING DOCTOR

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 323, 7 April 1928, Page 22

AUSTRALIA’S FLYING DOCTOR

Medical Aid by Airplane Into the Never Never

TTING Macquarie Street into Canuwaukalinna! Setting down the man with the little black bag at Blue Grass Bend or Warrulliling!

Bent upon spreading a mantle of safety over isolated pioneers, a charity organisation, the aerial medical service, is, as it were, taking Mahomet to the Mountain. The Flying Doctor is about to hop off for the Never Never. On May 1 (says a writer in the Sydney “Sun”> a ten-year-old dream will be translated into actuality with the commencement of an aerial medical service. What it will mean to the people of our lonely frontiers <an only be appreciated to the full by those people themselves. The elimination of the old, consuming dread! There is its greatest virtue.

In the whirr of the plane’s propeller is a marvellously comforting message of security to the folk back o’ beyond. They will be able to laugh now at the unseen tormenting imps with their incessant jeering: “What would happen if . . . ?” The Flying Doctor is destined to infuse new life, new hope into the alleged dead heart of Australia.

Stories are told, and can be multiplied a hundredfold, of the desperate risks that the pioneers have run in cutting themselves off from medical aid.

pened, however, that the doctor was patrolling the railway line 250 miles away from his headquarters. The miner’s injuries were such that he could not be moved, and for days he lingered on in excrutiating agony. Anxious watched him day and night. On about the tenth day he feigned cheerfulness and by strategy persuaded his guard to leave the tent for a moment. As soon as he was alone he snatched up a revolver and ended his earthly troubles. Tn both these instances, and in many others similar, death would probably have been cheated had medical aid been near at hand. The tale of inland tragedies is bound to diminish with the establishment of the new service.

Several years ago, the wife of a telegraph operator in Central Australia became ill. The husband’s medicine chest was about as inadequate as his medical knowledge, and although he telegraphed for advice, the woman ♦lied. At that time the train to Oodnadatta started once a fortnight and took three days to reach its destination. The mail took another 10 days before it arrived at Alice Springs. Thence, to the telegraph station a pack mail went out once in six weeks cr so.

The bereaved telegraphist. who had one mate with him, was determined that his wife should have a civilised burial. The only way that that was possible was to use the kitchen table to make a coffin. He was not able to replace the table for twelve months. Hatch’s Creek is about 70 miles east of the telegraph line, and more than 200 miles north of Alice; Springs. During the war when a great deal of the wolfram used by the Allies was being taken out of that isolated spot, one of the miners was crushed while at work.

The experiment at the moment is limited to one service station to function continuously for one year, with Cloncurry, Western Queensland, as the base of operations. The difficulties which confront the organisers are immense. Before their final objective—the provision of ail aerial medical service for all outback districts at present * isolated —is reached, it virtually means that the whole continent will have been “aerialised.”

By road it was 250 miles to Alice Springs, and from there the nearest doctor was 300 miles away. It hap-

It is not possible yet to exactly define the working area of the first ex-

periment, but it is probable that a mantle of comparative safety will be cast over an area .exceeding 250,000 square miles —equal almost to the whole area of New South Wales. While natural landing grounds are available in many places on the flying doctor’s “beat,” a goo.d deal of work has yet to be done in that direction. During the first year of the experiment, the organisation’s minister in Western Queensland, the Rev. George Scott, who is resigning his parish in Marrickville in order to take up the new work, will be kept busy inspecting suggested landing grounds, supervising the lay-outs, and reporting details to the aerial base.

The greatest need of all so far as the remotely-sßuated pioneers are concerned is the provision of wireless equipment that will enable them to call for help. How very necessary it is may be gauged from the fact that there is one gap of 600 miles between the terminals of inland telegraph stations. For three years the organisation has been experimenting, and has now arranged for a wireless expert to accompany Mr. Scott. Between them they hope to instal sufficent “baby” stations to test out the ability of the average bushman to make himself heard in a day of trouble.