bushy,
I agree with what your saying.
As new medical technology becomes available the aircraft are getting heavier all the time.
A seriously burned patient or critical patient will normally have a doctor and nurse, as well as the doctor you would load 40-50 kg of additional equipment.
RFDS pilots have fairly uniform CAO48 exemption across the country, they still have maximum flight and duty time limitations. As the job is "on call" you could be 10 hours into your "on call" period at home and tasked for a 14 hour duty. Then you need an addition rest time after that end of duty, and if that end of duty took you into late night operations, you have a limit on how many you can do in a week.
That being said, if the patient was known to be life critical, every avenue would be explored to move the patient before the captain would be asked (with the CP consent) if he would accept the task on a mercy flight basis.
I am not a medically trained person, however in my experience patients will only be transported when the medical staff are happy to do so, and the priority for when to move them is a medical decision.
What I guess I am hinting at, is that the medical people may have decided the priority for this patient was move with 24 hours, as apposed to the higher priority which is life critical move asap.
I also know that sections will call upon each other in times of need, could have had a king air from Mt Isa (QLD) in 1:20, Broken Hill (NSW) 2:20, Derby (WA) or Darwin (NT) 2:30
