Today is the 93rd anniversary of the first Flying Doctor flight which took place in North West Queensland.
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On May 17, 1928 the first Flying Doctor flight took off from Cloncurry for Julia Creek with doctor Kenyon St Vincent Welch aboard a Qantas de Havilland 50 biplane, leased for two shillings a mile.
In its inaugural year, the service made 50 flights and treated 225 patients. Today, the RFDS helps over a thousand people every day, delivered through a network of aircraft, road vehicles and telehealth services across Australia.
The idea for the Flying Doctor dates back to 1917, when Rev John Flynn, founder and head of the Presbyterian Church's Australian Inland Mission, received an unusually interesting letter.
It was from a trainee pilot in the Australian Flying Corps, Clifford Peel, who had been a medical student before enlisting during World War I.
Combining his medical training with his experience in the young field of aviation Peel suggested how aircraft could be used to carry out the mission's work. He went into detail, covering aircraft type, range, speed and costs and suggested Oodnadatta, Cloncurry and Katherine as potential bases.
Sadly Peel's RE-8 two-seater disappeared on a patrol over France in 1918 but his letter started the Reverend Flynn on a quest to found the flying doctor service.
In the course of doing this he met other young returned military aviators, including Hudson Fysh, who ran the Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Service. In 1927, Qantas and the Aerial Medical Service (the Royal Flying Doctor Service name came in 1955) signed a lease agreement with the first flight a year later.
With the help of Alfred Traeger's invention of the pedal radio, Cloncurry was established as a base.
When Dr Welsh was flown to Dajarra, an hour from Cloncurry, to treat a child, people hearing of his presence queued up to see him.
It was the flying doctors' first medical clinic, something that would become standard practice in the years that followed.
The RFDS said the vision of their founder, John Flynn, to deliver a mantle of safety for rural and remote Australians remains just as relevant as it did in 1928.
"Ninety three years on, and we are still providing a mantle of safety for Australians and we think that that is a legacy worth celebrating," the RFDS said.
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Derek Barry
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
