In the clouds over regional Australia a different kind of fly-in fly-out workforce is taking to the skies and it’s changing the face of regional healthcare.
On the ground, an airport that once serviced the defunct Ravensthorpe nickel mine has replaced hi-vis-clad workers with medical specialists in blue polo shirts.
Crossing the tarmac they have come to treat patients and NDIS participants in Hopetoun, 550 kilometres south-east of Perth.
It is a popular holiday and farming town, home to just over 1,000 people, but a shortage of allied health professionals meant residents were travelling to neighbouring towns for specialised care.
“I would drive to Esperance, which is about two and a half hours away, or to go to Albany, which is around a four-hour drive, to do occupational and speech therapy,” patient Terri Evans said.
The mother-of-two drove over 1,000 kilometres a month before the medico flights and said the travel became so exhausting she considered leaving the beachside town.
“We were looking at [moving] because we weren’t able to do the fortnightly trips,” she said.
“It would been a whole day of missed school, and the expenses we had to pay to go to those services as well.
“It was just getting too much for me to try and do all those trips, and also try and work and look after the children.”
Help from above
Help came from the skies, with a team of allied health specialists flying into Hopetoun once a fortnight on a four-seat Cirrus SR 22 flown by pilot Julian Munday.
“Most of the time we’re taking an occupational therapist, a speech therapist as well, sometimes physios and psychologists,” he said.
The pilot and client services coordinator for Fly2Health said the service, which flies to over 45 locations across Australia, took the pressure off families.
“Flying to these locations massively cuts down on travel time for the clinicians and that allows them to be on the ground spending more time with the clients and seeing more clients on location,” he said.
The model has also been taken up by practitioners who say face-to-face treatment exceeds what is available through alternative models like telehealth.
“They know we’re going to come every fortnight,” said speech pathologist Elizabeth Stratton.
“We work in the classrooms, we can go into their homes, we can go into the community, and these are ways that can help children become participants within their environments.”
FIFO not enough
Fly2Health group director Kennedy Lay said the client base was made up of 75 per cent NDIS contracts, but practitioners also saw private patients who were required to pay gap fees in coverage.
Hopetoun GP and rural generalist Hareesh Menon said while the FIFO service met a need in the community there were still patients not covered by the NDIS who were going without.
“They provide a great service, however they only see a very small percentage of the community,” he said.
“I’m talking like one or two per cent when there is a much, much greater untapped need and requirements.”
Dr Menon said the town had enough residents to support a suite of permanent allied health professionals, but more funding and support from all levels of government was needed.
“If we could get a little bit more funding from state government and local government to help bring people out, that would be fantastic,” he said.
The state government said allied and primary health care was a federal responsibility.
A spokesperson for the federal Department of Health said it was spending $24 million on trials of new primary care models to reduce workforce shortages and improve access to rural services.
But Ms Evans said those funds had not found their way to towns like Hopetoun.
“There are so many towns that need services that don’t have them and can’t get them,” she said.
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