CareFlight outback rescue services secured (28/04/15)

Archerfield Airport welcomed a host of dignitaries, including the Premier of Queensland, Annastacia Palaszczuk, on Sunday April 26 for a major announcement regarding government funding for vital aeromedical services.

Together with the Minister for Health and Minister for Ambulance Services, Cameron Dick, the Premier announced a $56 million extension of CareFlight’s contract with Queensland Health to provide doctors to transport sick patients from remote Queensland to major hospitals. This initiative will ensure that people living in the outback will continue to have access to high quality medical facilities.

CareFlight provides world-leading retrieval medicine services and specialises in the recruitment, training and provision of frontline critical care doctors and medical support staff for air medical retrieval from nine locations across Queensland. CareFlight Retrieval Medicine Ltd has had the Queensland Government contract to fly to remote areas since 2004, and the current contract (now renewed till 2019) was due to expire in February next year.

The Premier said: “Last year alone, more than 4,000 sick people in outback Queensland were seen by CareFlight doctors. That’s more than 10 patients a day. People out west face a completely different set of circumstances to those in the city, and Queensland is such a large state that the distance to a hospital or even a doctor can be quite daunting. My government is committed to providing all Queensland with access to high quality treatment, wherever they live.”

PHOTO: Specialist CareFlight staff conduct a demonstration for the Premier and the Minister for Health at the media announcement at CareFlight's Archerfield Airport facility.  

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