For almost a century, the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) has serviced Australia's biggest waiting room; the outback.
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On Wednesday, the world's first air ambulance celebrated its 95th anniversary in the heart of the Queensland outback where it all began.
Community members in the north west Queensland town of Cloncurry gathered alongside RFDS officials, former staff, and local leaders to commemorate the aeromedical organisation's first ever flight which took off from Cloncurry for Julia Creek on May 17, 1928.
The celebration was as symbolic as it was important. It was held at an RFDS museum in Cloncurry called John Flynn Place, which was ceremoniously named after the man who founded the flying medical service.
As the museum's own website says, John Flynn Place honours an Australian visionary as well as those who joined his campaign for better living conditions in remote Australia during an era of technological advance, when aviation and radio overcame the continent's vast tracts of isolation.
Attendees heard from committee members of Friends of John Flynn Place, an organisation tasked with supporting and helping develop the museum. There were also speeches from retired RFDS doctor Don Bowley OAM, RFDS Qld Chairman Russell Postle, and Cloncurry Mayor Greg Campbell.
All speeches had one theme in common, which was to spruik just how important the RFDS still is to outback communities.
In its first year of operation, the organisation then known as the Aerial Medical Service, completed 50 flights to 26 destinations and treated 225 patients. The operation has since grown to service more than 300,000 patients a year through RFDS clinics, aeromedical transports and recently, telehealth consultations.
RFDS Qld Telehealth Lead Dr Meg O'Connell said some of the patients she cares for are more remote than astronauts on the International Space Station.
"Rural and remote patients usually have poor access to health services, worse health outcomes, less life expectancy, and more chronic disease," Ms O'Connell said
"Some of our patients are so remote that to get to their closest clinic is a 10-hour drive, and it is really a tough drive which many of them only do twice a year," she said.
"We will always have that remote patient mindset because that's what founder John Flynn wanted us to do, put a 'mantle of safety' around the people of Australia's remote communities."
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