AERIAL AMBULANCES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20365, 20 September 1929, Page 15

AERIAL AMBULANCES.

WORK IN AUSTRALIA.

CASES FROM BACKBLOCKS.

INSTANCES OF TIMELY AID.

To have carried a 17st. man 130 miles with a broken arm, and a child in convulsions 60 miles, are two of the most noteworthy achievements of invalid transport by an Australian. They were cited by Dr. If. G. R. Poate, of Sydney, in n paper on first-aid arid invalid transport before the Naval, Military and Air Medicine Section of the recent Medical Congress.

Dr. Poate emphasised that the most efficient transport for invalids in outback parts of Australia was by aerial ambulance. So far the longest flight with a patient had been 600 miles. The lecturer cited the work of Dr. K. St. Vincent- Welch in Queensland, where a contract had been arranged with a commercial service for 25,000 miles' flying at 2s a mile. If a profit could be made from this it might reasonably be expected that an efficient aerial ambulance service could do the work for much less. Cases met by Dr. Welch included a child with convulsions, who was taken 60 miles by air, and for part of the journey was under chloroform. On another occasion a 17st. man with a broken arm, collarbone, and ribs, was carried 130 miles. On the flight none of the patients showed any mental or physical disturbance, and all arrived in far better condition than if they had been taken by ambulance waggon over a fraction of the distance. In another 10 years, Dr. Poato said, he felt sure most of tho country districts throughout the Commonwealth would have aerial ambu lance services.

Military Air Ambulances

"Probably the first indication that a military campaign is not prospering is a 'break-down in the medical arrangements,' " said Dr. Robert Fowler, of Melbourne, when addressing the Naval, Military and Air Section on Airway Ambulances. " Hitherto our means of transport," he said, "have been confined to the age-old barriers of land and water. Now, however, comes tho realisation that tho development of aircraft has made available a medium of transport which is independent of those barriers. Aviation transport is a project that has materialised to such an extent that organised air ambulance work can be regarded as an accomplished fact. It almost goes without saying that transport aviation can in no wise replace or seriously reduce present army ambulance establishments. It can only bo regarded as an adjuvant organisation supplementing, rather than supplanting existing units." Dr. R. Fowler, of Melbourne, who also spoke of airway ambulances, said the future expansion and stability of peacetime ambulance aviation was assured, either as a commercial proposition or as a subsidised civil service. The value of aerial ambulances in wartime, he said, was established in the Great War on the French front, in Palestine and and in Morocco in the French war. France pioneered the idea on the Western Front, and in Morocco and Syria, and up till the end of 1925 nearly 3000 cases had been taken by aeroplane from war fronts without accident.

During the fighting in Irak, said I)r. Fowler, special ambulance aeroplanes were built for the British, and many sick were transported to the military hospitals in Bagdad by this means and by means of converted Bristol fighters. In peacetime aerial ambulances had been established in Sweden, U.S.A., Siam, New Guinea and Germany, as well as in Australia. In New Guinea an ambulance hydroplane took patients to a hospital in two hours. Previously tho trip occupied 17 days. In Sweden, tho Bed Cross Society conveyed patients from difficult parts of the country to hospitals, and carried medical men and nurses to patients in the rugged mountain districts. Wonderful Inland Work. Tho Australian Inland Mission, which established the aerial medical service in 1928, was, said Dr. Fowler, doing wonderful work. A flying doctor was appointed, with his headquarters at Cloncurry. He had a DHSO piano, fitted with a stretcher, and a full equipment of drugs and instruments. In summer flying was not comfortable in the middle of the day, owing to the very "bumpy" state of the air, but comfortable flights could be made in the early morning. On a number of occasions the doctor travelled 300 miles beforo breakfast, operated at once, and returned to his base before lunch. In the first year 20,000 miles w6re flown, and tho cost was about £BO a flight. Referring to the needs of an army aerial transport, Dr. Fowler suggested that the basis of an airway organisation should be an aerial ambulance convoy, which could be oxpandod into an ambulance squadron or wing.