RED CROSS OF THE AIR.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 55, 7 March 1939, Page 12

RED CROSS OF THE AIR.

The Importance of The Flying t)ocior.

Eleven years ago, in a country situated many thousands of miles from England, a tiny air company started the first regular air ambulance service in the world.

The country is Queensland in Australia, and the air service Qantas who today, form one of the most important links in Imperial Airways' 30,000 miles of aerial trunk routes which connect England with the far-flung outposts of her Empire.

The true significance of air communications in cases of emergency sickness is fully realised by people living in localities far removed from the centres of expert treatment.

With a vision befitting a country which presents unique comraunica ion difficulties, Qantas realised the tremendous service the air could offer people living in isolated parts of Australia, situated many hundreds of miles from the nearest doctor.

And so the Flying Doctor came into being.

The Australian Inland Mission supplied the doctor; Qantas the aircraft. Owners of big sheep and cattle stations were encouraged to clear land suitable for landing grounds.

Bicycle wireless transmitting sets were established in "outback" homes, where no electricity was laid on, so named because the owner generated his own power for transmission by sitting on a bicycle and going through pedalling movements. Thus the first regular air ambulance service in the world was formed. That was in 1928.

The lead which Qantas set the world eleven years ago in Australia has been followed, in a somewhat different degree, by other countries throughout the Empire. Commercial aircraft, which feed the millions of inhabitants of the British Empire with mail and freight, are frequently called upon to utilise their passenger space for the carriage of invalid cases.

Stretcher cases are a common eight on Imperial Airways giant flying-boats operating normal passenger services. Linking up, as they do, 30,000 miles of Empire air routes, they ensure that invalids can reach, in the minimum amount of time, the centre of the highest specialised treatment for the case in question.

One can call to mind the instance of a ground engineer suffering from myelitis in Karachi, who was able to enter a nursing home in England in three days from the time lie left India.

A woman suffering from cancer flew from Nairobi and was met by an ambulance at _ Southampton, from where she was conveyed immediately to her destination in Cheshire, a journey lasting five days. ..;....

A man who fractured his heel falling from a high building at Port Bell, Uganda, was three and a half days later comfortably installed in bed in England, receiving treatmentat one of the most advanced fracture clinics in the Empire. Hospital Plane. This year, for the first time in the history of their- country's aviation, America's great combine of airlines is considering the establishing of a "hospital 'plane" which would be made available-to important clinics and the medical profession generally, throughout the country, on a charter basis. They do not assume that it would be necessary to tie up one ship for this purpose, but that seats could be removed and cots installed.

But it is to the pioneers of the first regular air ambulance service that we must look for truly colourful cases. One of the most important'features of Qantas ambulance work in those early

days was the treatment of maternity cases. Expectant mdthers "out-back" —and only those who fully realise the vastness of Australian bush country can appreciate the terrible isolation of some of those "out-back" homes—would watch the skies with anxious eyes for the dreaded yearly rains, which would mean the complete severance of all communications. The doctor could not be in attendance. Mortality was often high.

To-day, thanks to the flying doctor, such circumstances need never arise. A wireless call, if a telephone is not connected, brings a doctor on the scene within a few hours. Possibly the most remarkable feature of this particular air ambulance service is that it is all voluntary. It is left to the patient to pay what he can. The concern is financed by public subscription.

A woman has joined Australia's ranks of flying doctors, possibly the only woman doctor to be doing such work in the world. She is Doctor White of Normanton, Queensland, a middle-aged woman of fine character, carrying out a great job of work.

The advisability of a woman doing such work Was looked upon with widespread doubt by the general public at first, but that Doctor White has proved herself equal to the task was soon acknowledged by both the peoples of all States and the pilots who fly the 'planes.