Sector3

The Royal Flying Doctor Service (Western Operations) today announced an $11.4 million partnership with Rio Tinto for its first emergency jet service in Australia.

The Rio Tinto Life Flight will provide a free-of-charge, community medical jet service to patients in need of evacuation when time and distance are critical.

RFDS chief executive Tim Shackleton said the partnership was a ground-breaking move for emergency aeromedical services.

“It is a great leap forward for the RFDS, and a dream come true for people in the bush,” Mr Shackleton said. “It will help to overcome the tyranny of distance in remote and regional areas.”

Rio Tinto will contribute $5 million to establish the jet service and the RFDS will contribute medical and nursing staff and equipment.

The jet will be able to fly from Kununurra to Perth in three hours, halving the time it takes the RFDS to make this journey in its existing turbo-prop aircraft.

“With the invaluable support of Rio Tinto we will be able to deliver a faster, more effective service to very sick people, especially those we need to transport over the exceptionally long flying distances unique to Western Australia. In an emergency, every minute counts,” Mr Shackleton said.

“It heralds the start of a new era for the Royal Flying Doctor Service, which celebrates its 80th year of service to the community this year,” he said.

The leased Rio Tinto Life Flight jet will meet RFDS standards, becoming an airborne intensive care unit staffed by highly-trained doctors and nurses on a round the clock roster.

Rio Tinto Iron Ore chief executive Sam Walsh said the partnership reflected a strong commitment to the regional and remote communities in which most Rio Tinto employees lived and worked.

“We are acutely aware that the rapid expansion of communities in regions such as the Pilbara, Kimberley and Gascoyne has created an urgent imperative for a faster, more direct medical retrieval service,” Mr Walsh said.

“We are proud to support Australia’s first and only RFDS-operated jet service. We believe the service will help close the gap in health service availability between the city and the country.”

Mr Walsh said the partnership complemented Rio Tinto’s broad range of health investments in the state and nationally, such as the Aboriginal health partnership with the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research and a commitment of $1 million over four years towards the RFDS aircraft replacement appeal.

The Rio Tinto Life Flight jet service is expected be flying by the end of the year, and is expected to transport about 500 patients in the first 12 months.

Background:

• Demand for the RFDS in the Kimberley and Pilbara has grown 35 per cent over the past five years
• There are about 1,000 patient transfers from these regions to Perth each year
• The current fleet of RFDS turboprop aircraft are ideally suited to intra-regional flights and landings on bush airstrips
• Turboprops are less suitable for flying long distances to Perth, given their relatively low speed
• It can take a turboprop six hours to fly to Perth from the Kimberley.
• Crews are often forced to take mandatory rest periods in Perth before flying back to the north — and this can result in less coverage for emergencies back in the region.
• The Rio Tinto Life Flight will help the RFDS to overcome these problems and provide more consistent coverage in the regions
• The jet service will be able to respond rapidly to offshore emergencies in the Australian territories of Cocos and Christmas Islands
• It will be specially outfitted to transport babies with heart conditions to Melbourne for cardiac surgery

For further information, please contact:

Lesleigh Green
Director of Public Affairs
Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia
Tel: (08) 9417 6400
Mobile: 0409 685 024
Email:

Leith Paganoni
Media advisor – Iron Ore
Rio Tinto
Tel: (08) 9327 2975
Mobile: 0419 933 631
Email:

flyinggit

That all sounds like a great thing. I gather the RFDS wouldn't do a jet themselves without the help of Rio Tinto.
I see at around 3 hrs from Kunn to Perth would mean something fast like a Learjet or perhaps a fast version of the Citation.
Would love to fly for this crowd, am sure they have many to step into a jet, lucky buggers


FG

sms777

Is this the same jet that supposed to be flying as fast as the Concorde according to some WA reporters?

BwoKy

Is this anything to do with Pelair(ReX) recently advertising for Westind pilots based in Karratha as well as Perth???
Might be a way for them to get their Perth based jet flying a bit more often..

Lefthanded_Rock_Thrower

Well done to Rio Tinto !!!!!!!!!, shame the government did not see the value in the service.

Shame Alan Shame !!!!!!! you and your little monkey boy.

FRQ Charlie Bravo

If it's that urgent then fly to Darwin just up the road... oh yeah, there's an imaginary line in the way.

(Not being pessimistic, but that was a silly scenario to mention).

A few serious questions:
Is it the type/speed of aircraft that makes the difference or the response time? For the medicos out there, once the nurse/doctor are on the scene and the patient is in the aeroplane is it going to be of critical benefit to be in hospital in 2 hours rather than 3?

Where will it be stationed? If it's in the middle of the state (Meeka) then it'd be able to reach the far-flung population more quickly.

Will the idea be to have a turbo-prop get to the remote strip and have the jet pick up at the nearest base (or have the two fly towards each other and meet up in the middle)?

Good on them, it'd be interesting to be a fly on the wall in the operations centre when these decisions are made (both the overall decisions and the day to day ones).

FRQ CB

knox

FRQ. "For the medicos out there, once the nurse/doctor are on the scene and the patient is in the aeroplane is it going to be of critical benefit to be in hospital in 2 hours rather than 3?"

I'm sure if it was you or one of your loved ones in need, you'd be on your knees begging for them to get there faster.


Knox.

The Strez

The jet will NOT be flown by RFDS pilots!
The only RFDS staff that will be on this aircraft will be the nurses and the docs, so no, there isnt a backlog of RFDS pilots lining up to fly it.
It is going to be based at either Perth or Jandakot.

FRQ Charlie Bravo

Thanks for stating the obvious. I was not being critical of the idea, just joining in on the debate; which is exactly why I asked for the opinion of a medico on THAT question.

If it were one of my loved ones of course I'd probably think that the bloomin' jet was too slow and I'd want a friggin' rocket ship... which is exactly why we have impartial decision makers (I mean, can you imagine if every appendectomy got a rocket ship).

So anyway, does anybody have an intelligent response to my query?

FRQ CB

Lefthanded_Rock_Thrower

I'm no expert, although I did play Doctors and Nurses quite alot as a child......

Time is of the essence with a number of situations:

Heart attack, stroke, most things to do with kids and babies, severe bleeding, some pregnancy things, loss limbs, arterial blockages and eye injuries.

The faster aircraft can cover more miles in a day and see more people, a Citation or similar on one engine would be safer than its turbo prop equivalent on one engine,,,,chicks dig jet pilots .

morno

So if they're painted in RFDS colours, and said to be for the RFDS, but not piloted by RFDS crews, who the hell do they belong to and who is going to crew them?

morno

VH-XXX

This can only be a good thing.

Hats off to the higher powers at Rio Tinto for putting back into the community.

On eyre

So if the aircraft is to be based in Perth how is the return flight to the Kimberley, for example, going to be quicker to get a patient to the capital city than using a locally based PC-12?
Seems to me that basing the aircraft in the north would make more sense.

Towering Q

Agreed, Hedland would seem the most logical choice.

Hopefully Meeka and Hedland crews will be able to concentrate on their respective areas now instead of running 'meets' through Meeka.

A good outcome for all regardless of who does the crewing.

maxgrad

FRQ, I'm not a medico but have seen a number of times how reduced time to the receiving hospital can save a life. Having said that 1999 times out of 2000 the patient is stable and time is not critical.

Taildragger67

From my reading, the article does not state that the aircraft will be "in RFDS colours". They may presumably come under RFDS operational control.

As to ownership, the article states that the aircraft will be leased. Maybe the lessor will arrange flight crew. The article seems pretty clear that the RFDS will provide medical crew rather than technical crew.

I suggest that questions as to ownership, etc. could be addressed in the first instance the RFDS or Rio contacts given in the article.

morno

Taildragger, it was a very simple question which only needed a very simple answer. If you can't provide any useful information, why bother replying with shit that is obvious in an abusive manner?

morno

OZBUSDRIVER

Good to see RT doing a good thing for the people of the bush. Sir Joh did the same thing with the Joh Jet years ago but didn't make a noise about it. Saved our Dozer Foreman's eye when a circlip broke and went into his eye out the back of Windorah back in the early eighties

Should be more of it Minutes do count.

FRQ Charlie Bravo

Forget the Kimberley, Darwin has top hospitals. Medicare is Aus wide so let the bean counters do the maths after the fact rather than accommodating their concerns in the pre-flight. I mean 1190 nm PKU-PPH vs 235 PKU-PDN. Looking strictly at numbers and ignoring questions of the location of particular specialists (i.e. should a burns victim go the extra distance to be in Perth) it can be quite clearly seen that anybody evacuated to a jet-worthy aerodrome anywhere North East from the Sandfire Roadhouse (there's nothing to the NW anyway so just make that to the North of YSFI) ought to go to Darwin. (Refer to the image below; I spent probably just a little too much time on it).

There's a weird hang-up in peoples minds over political boundaries. I've been in Kunnas with a pregnant wife and (for a particular procedure) we chose to go to Darwin rather than Perth for convenience... you should have seen the faces of the hospital staff, as if Darwin were overseas or something.



Lines show direct routes between Perth, Darwin and Adelaide. Intersecting lines are half way and perpendicular... the intersection of all three coloured lines is spot on 776nm... so it'd suck to get hurt there.

FRQ CB

Lefthanded_Rock_Thrower

Stuffed if you'll find anyone to live in Warbo or Giles.