General News
8 July, 2022
Royal Flying Doctor Service Celebrates 50 Years In Cairns
FIFTY years of providing lifesaving services to the Far North Queensland region will be celebrated this month when the Royal Flying Doctor Service Queensland (RFDS) has an open day at its Cairns base.
To celebrate the milestone, the RDFS Cairns Base will open its doors on July 23, to enable Cairns residents to visit the hangar, see the aircraft up close and learn about the history and vital services RFDS has been providing for decades.
Last financial year, RFDS teams from Cairns transferred more than 1,100 patients, provided 18,698 primary health care consultations, including 2,648 mental health consultations, and flew more than 1.2 million km.
The RFDS moved its base to Cairns on July 1, 1972. In its first month of operations, the team at the Cairns Base assisted over 600 patients and flew 12,000 kilometres.
RFDS Chief Executive Officer Meredith Staib said the RFDS Cairns Base was now one of the largest in Australia.
“When the base first opened, there were eight staff and a Beechcraft twin-engine Queen Air A80 aircraft,” Ms Staib said.
“Today, our Cairns base is home to four aircraft and more than 100 staff. “As we look towards the next 50 years, we’re committed to our promise of providing care to the furthest corner and will continue to innovate.”
The 50th anniversary is particularly memorable for former Cairns Base Manager Mike Lacey, who worked with RFDS for 28 years and witnessed the organisation’s evolution.
“My journey started in 1989 as vice manager for the Cairns Base and lasted for 28 years,” Mr Lacey said.
“I saw lots of changes during that period. When I first started, radio was the dominant communication system.
“Now we have mobile phones, satellite phones, internet, zoom and all those things that have made a vast difference from when I started.”
According to Mr Lacey, the range of services the RFDS offers have also shifted in time to cater for other necessities within the community.
“There’s been enormous expansion,” he said.
“When I first started, the prime reason for the RFDS was aeromedical retrievals and clinics, and now Cairns is very dominated by primary healthcare, mental health education, health promotion, so it’s become a holistic health organisation.”
Mr Lacey is now enjoying life as a retiree, but he still advocates for the essential job the RFDS does for the FNQ community.
“This service is essential – we’re saving people’s lives,” he said.
“I think that’s the bottom line – it’s a life-saving service.
“People would not be here today if it weren’t for the RFDS, and as it’s expanded its services, it’s providing many more useful services to the community.”
RFDS Cairns Nurse Manager Aeromedical, Leanne Hill, said the RFDS services greatly impacted the FNQ community over the decades.
“I might be biased, but I think our services are extremely important,” Ms Hill said.
“The service that we provide to people that live in rural and remote QLD enables many people to stay, live and work where they currently are.
“Otherwise, they would have to move into the east coast or into bigger towns with facilities.
“I think enabling people to live and work where they want to be is important.”
Ms Hill invited the Cairns community to participate in their Open Day on Saturday, July 23 and join in the celebration.
“It’s going to be very exciting because we’ll have aircraft for people to come up and look at. They’ll see the aeromedical aircraft and the primary healthcare aircraft,” she said.
“They’ll get to see what we work out of and how different both aircraft are on the inside to offer different services.”
To find out more about the RFDS Cairns Open Day, visit https://bit.ly/3AAMJqz
