Telehealth - Western Operations
In Western Australia, RFDS doctors provide a wide range of emergency and routine advice, mostly by telephone, to patients and health workers in remote and rural parts of Western Australia and ships at sea.
Approximately 30,000 calls are handled each year through our Operations Centre in Perth and each of these is switched through to a duty RFDS doctor in one of our five regions. There are generally two doctors available in each region during the day (subject to emergency flights) and one at night.
A caller from a remote setting in Western Australia should be able to access an experienced medical practitioner, at no charge, at any time of the day or night, within about two minutes.
Some of the problems handled are routine general practice cases such as children’s problems or minor illnesses and injuries, where diagnosis is made over the phone and treatment prescribed from a cache of pharmaceuticals in the RFDS Medical Chest.
Callers may be patients themselves, or health workers such as mine paramedics, or remote area nurses seeking advice and authorisation for treatment.
At the other end of the spectrum are emergency calls, where advice on resuscitation and initial treatment is provided and an emergency evacuation flight or medical retrieval is arranged. In addition to printed material, RFDS doctors can provide a sounding board to other rural doctors on the initial managment of a variety of common emergencies.