FLYING DOCTORS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 220, 16 September 1932, Page 8

FLYING DOCTORS.

OUTBACK DISTRICTS. jj AUSTRALIAN FLAN OUTLINED, :i "~~■ —— £50,000 WOULD COVER COST. e "For £50,000 a year the whole of Australia could be covered by flying doc- ! tors," eaid the famous "Flynn of the 3 Inland.'" in Adelaide for the recent rodeo. t He is the P.ev. John Flynn, of the Australian Inland Mission, on whose behalf . the rodeo was held. t "Tlie first new base we would start ■ on would be either at Broken Hill or Beltana," he eaid. "Anyway it would serve the north of South Australia. I ■ have it all worked out. If we made Beltana our base, the flying doctor would be able, in emergencies, to attend I Anforichina hoetel for tubercular solI diers. To-day a doctor has to be brought all the way from Hawker. But if New South Wales and South Australia combined, we could make Broken Hill our base., and serve an area of 280,000 square miles. Safety For Women. "It would not cost so much. At Cloncurry it costs us £2500 a year for doctor, pilot and 'plane; the big expense would be the installation of every homestead with a wireless transmitter, withlout which the flying doctor service is I useless. To keep apparatus working would cost another £2000 a year. "With that equipment and a medical service base, no woman would dread going outback, and no man would be afraid to aek her to. After all, those men inland have a right to wives, and their wives have a right to security." That is the -whole aim of "Flynn of the Inland's" 20 years outback. He has , travelled by horse, by camel, by "motor b,l ggy." b y police train, and by aero-11 plane. It took him tw.o weeks to travel j, from Oodnadatta to Alice Springs 19 ' years ago; on the way he ran almost j out of food, and lived on onions and s toast. t "It was toast because the bread was r so old that we could not eat it any r other way," he smiled. J a