FLYING DOCTOR

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 77, Issue 196, 20 August 1934, Page 8

FLYING DOCTOR

I STRENUOUS JOURNEYS. 1700 MILES TO AID SICK. I The “Flying Doctor” of the Australian Inland Mission covered 1700 ( miles in a recent fortnight, responding ‘ to urgent calls for medical aid—one to fight an epidemic among aborigines on Mornington Island, and another to per- ] form a delicate operation on a white • patient in a nursing home, in the heart , of the Australian desert. A wireless appeal for aid from the , mission station on Morningt'n Island ‘ reached the mission radio station at Cloncurry. Leaving Cloncurry on Sun- . day, July 29, in the mission aeroplane Victory, the doctor arrived at Morn- ‘ ington, 303 miles away, in time for ■ lunch. He spent Sunday afternoon and all Monday treating the sick abori- . gines, and. after sending a message to , Brisbane for medicine to make up the shortage in the supply at the island, he left on Tuesday on his return flight to'Cloncurry, calling en route at . Burketown and treating several sick . white people there. On Tuesday a call was received from ( the Elizabeth Symon nursing home , at Innamincka, South Australia, and , after a flight of 454 miles from Cion- . curry the doctor successfully operated . on a patient in the home. The home, which is named after a daughter of the late Sir Josiah Symon, who contributed largely to its funds, is in the centre of a stony desert.