| BACK HOME FLYING DOCTOR OF BROKEN HILL NSW AUSTRALIA It was a fine, cloudless morning as the three-engine "drover" aircraft was brought from the hangar, "revved up" at the end of the strip, and took off in a northerly direction. Pilot Jack Jenkins was taking the Flying Doctor, Dr. C. R. R. Huxtable, on an emergency call to Caradoc station, 130 air miles from Broken Hill. That a team of people was responsible for this flight may not have seemed obvious, but just as surely as doctor and pilot were heading for Caradoc, so had the Control Station staff handled all preliminary arrangements. This team is the New South Wales Section of the Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia. A Typical Story We were passengers in the "Drover" as it flew towards White Cliffs and Carodoc. During the night a call had come from Mulga Valley requesting assistance for a sick woman, Mrs Bawden. Arrangements had been made to bring her by car to the nearest airstrip at Carodoc, and we were to meet her there. In The meantime, Doctor Huxtable sat reading the :Australian Medical Journal" - he spends many hours in the air, and has grown accustomed to profiting from this enforced leisure. Stephens Creek Reservoir dropped away beneath us, and we continued on over the ridges of the Grey Range. As the country flattened out, we bucketed mildly across the sky until Carodoc station finally came into view, Pilot Jenkins made the traditional circuit around the homestead, in order to advise the station folk that we had arrived, and then headed for the nearby airstrip. Mrs Gilby, of Mulga Valley drove the patient over to the airstrip, and there and then the doctor made his medical examination. Mrs Bawden would have to be brought into hospital at Broken Hill, so it was only a matter of lifting her into the aircraft's stretcher, shaking hands all round and taking off again. We did not, however, head directly towards Broken Hill. This flight had occurred on the day of the doctor's scheduled clinic at Menindee and, as the patient was comfortable, he was determined to conduct the clinic despite the delay. So we flew almost directly South. White Cliffs appeared as a small huddle of buildings on our left, with the pock-marked opal field outside the township telling its mute story of past prosperity. In due course we arrive at the Darling, a river much less turbulent than during our flight over its swollen banks last year, (1956) but still running a good volume of water. After a friendly circuit over Menindee township, we headed for the airstrip, where the doctor was left. The plane then continued on the remaining 65-mile trip to Broken Hill. We had left at 9.30 that morning. By 1 p.m. we were back at Broken Hill, having covered 330 air miles. At the aerodrome an ambulance was waiting to take Mrs. Bawden to the hospital. With her went Dr Huxtable's preliminary diagnosis and the memory of a flight (her first) made comfortable by the administering of calming drugs and attentions of the doctor. She was restored to health after a few days in hospital. This little story is typical of those which could be recorded well-nigh every day in one part or another of Australia. It illustrates how the Royal Flying Doctor Service is realising the dream of the late Very. Rev. John Flynn, D.D., O.B.E., who was the motive force in providing a "Mantle of Safety" over the far-flung outback of our "sunburnt Continent. Operations At Broken Hill The overall story has already been told in several excellent publications, so we confine our observations to the Base at Broken Hill. The territory it covers is some 350,000 square miles within a 500 mile radius. About 220 station and outback posts maintain contact with the base through their radio transceivers. Many other outposts are indirectly in contact through the bush telephones, whose thin wires and coolabah posts criss-cross our outback. In addition, there are a large number of "portables"-transceivers through which parties of drovers, shearers, the police, missionaries, businessmen and others may still contact civilisation as required. CONTINUE NEXT PAGE |