Emergency helicopter service feasibility

Residents and visitors in regional Australia receive an excellent service emergency medical transport and care.  Most towns have ambulances staffed by volunteers and paramedics are based at larger centres.  The Royal Flying Doctors Service brings critically ill and injured patients to tertiary hospitals.

But what happens when tragedy strikes beyond the timely reach of the ambulance service?  Unlike most Australian states, Western Australia does not have  a regionally-based emergency medical helicopter service to respond to people in need on the Abrolhos Islands and in other remote or inaccessible areas.

Social Dimensions, in partnership with a health service planning consultant, won a tender from the Mid West Development Commission to test the feasibility and costs of establishing local emergency medical helicopter service capacity.  The report was completed in late 2010.