IT’S been a busy couple of months for the Royal Flying Doctor Service South East Section (RFDS SE) with the launch last November of a new patient transfer road service.
Last week RFD SE also received a new agreement with state government for funding of NSW Inter-hospital transfers in place until June 2017.
Health minister Jillian Skinner visited the Dubbo base to announce the $6 million per annum agreement and took the time to inspect the site, aircraft and transport vehicles.
The RFDS SE will continue to provide aircraft and crew from Dubbo and Broken Hill bases to transfer patients from one hospital to another when they need a higher level of care not available locally.
The south-east service transported 8500 patients across its sector last year.
Ms Skinner said the agreement would strengthen relationships between the flying doctor service and key partners NSW Health with Local Health Districts in Western and Far West NSW, and the NSW Ambulance Service.
RFDS SE chief executive officer, Greg Sam, said ensuring patients received the specialist treatment they needed and then re-united with families in a timely manner once recovered was a major logistical challenge in a country where a proportion of the population is so dispersed.
Ms Skinner also inspected one of the six new patient transfer road vehicles now situated at Bankstown Airport, Bourke, Cobar, Dubbo, Lightning Ridge and Orange.
The vehicles can carry a wide variety of patient types and have compatible patient handling systems with RFDS fixed wing aircraft.
“This service offers greater continuity of patient care between hospital and home while the timely repatriation of patients will also free up additional local and metropolitan hospital beds,” Mr Sam said.
Use of common stretchers on road vehicles and aircraft and the use of cutting-edge equipment, such as Bariatric and Special Purpose Litters, will ensure a more comfortable patient transfer.
Patient Transfer road vehicles will be equipped like aircraft and crewed by its medical professionals.
Use of aircraft to deliver medical services coupled with the pedal radio and then the diversification from emergency retrievals into the delivery of a wide range of primary and allied healthcare services to remote, rural and regional communities are examples of the innovation that has become a hallmark of the Royal Flying Doctor Service.
They have been delivering care to the furthest corners of Australia for almost 90 years.
There are currently 261,734 people in the Western NSW Local Health District, the second most sparsely populated area in the state.