Flying doctors
Australian cities like Sydney and Melbourne are big, fast, and exciting. They are full of enormous skyscrapers with more always being built, and modern transportation networks that carry millions of people to work and school every day. Life in the city is speedy, connected, busy, and convenient.
The center of Australia, however, is a huge, wide, dry, empty place, with very few people living there. A country town might have fewer than 30 people, and the nearest town might be hundreds of kilometers away. For the people who live out there, life is slow, quiet, lonely, and often very, VERY difficult and inconvenient. Think about it: if you lived in a small town, far away from a modern hospital, what would you do if you needed a doctor? What would you do if you had a medical emergency, and suddenly you needed to go to a hospital? You can’t wait for an ambulance to drive to you.
What would you do?
If you lived in a remote Australian town and you needed emergency medical help, you would call the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia. RFDSA doctors fly around central Australia in small airplanes helping people.
The RFDSA is an organisation of about 1,000 people, and it operates about 70 small airplanes. Every day, doctors make more than 200 flights in those planes. They travel more than 70,000km treating patients every day. In fact, in a typical year, the RFDSA does 300,000 meetings with patients.
Dr. Austin Garrett is a flying doctor. “I’m a medical doctor, and I’m also a pilot. I used to work in a hospital in Sydney, and flying planes was my hobby. Now, both things are part of my job. If someone called right now with an emergency, I would fly to them in my airplane. I would be with them in just a few hours. If they were really sick, I would take them to a hospital in a bigger town or city.”
Many people depend on the RFDSA. If this service didn’t exist, many people would die. It really is an essential part of life in central Australia.
The center of Australia, however, is a huge, wide, dry, empty place, with very few people living there. A country town might have fewer than 30 people, and the nearest town might be hundreds of kilometers away. For the people who live out there, life is slow, quiet, lonely, and often very, VERY difficult and inconvenient. Think about it: if you lived in a small town, far away from a modern hospital, what would you do if you needed a doctor? What would you do if you had a medical emergency, and suddenly you needed to go to a hospital? You can’t wait for an ambulance to drive to you.
What would you do?
If you lived in a remote Australian town and you needed emergency medical help, you would call the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia. RFDSA doctors fly around central Australia in small airplanes helping people.
The RFDSA is an organisation of about 1,000 people, and it operates about 70 small airplanes. Every day, doctors make more than 200 flights in those planes. They travel more than 70,000km treating patients every day. In fact, in a typical year, the RFDSA does 300,000 meetings with patients.
Dr. Austin Garrett is a flying doctor. “I’m a medical doctor, and I’m also a pilot. I used to work in a hospital in Sydney, and flying planes was my hobby. Now, both things are part of my job. If someone called right now with an emergency, I would fly to them in my airplane. I would be with them in just a few hours. If they were really sick, I would take them to a hospital in a bigger town or city.”
Many people depend on the RFDSA. If this service didn’t exist, many people would die. It really is an essential part of life in central Australia.