With two very special occasions of Mother’s Day (May 11) and International Nurses Day (May 12) happening so close together, we are taking the opportunity to celebrate the unique role of a Royal Flying Doctor Service Flight Nurse.
When someone thinks about the kind of emergencies the RFDS responds to, they might think of injuries from a motor vehicle accident, snake bites or heart attacks.
However, with smaller hospitals no longer offering maternity services, transporting women who have entered early labour, or experience complications with labour is an important part of the job. This is why our flight nurses need dual qualifications in midwifery and critical care.
RFDSSE Senior Flight Nurse Karen Barlow said nurses need to be ready for anything, because they don’t know what they will face during their shift.
“No two days are the same for a flight nurse. You might start a day by going to Walgett to assist a cardiac patient, then you might go to Cobar to pick up a woman who has gone into early labour,” Karen said.
In the last six months, two babies have been born mid-flight in RFDS planes in NSW alone, so the midwifery skills are critical.
“When we arrive and meet the patient, the flight nurse assesses whether we will stay at the referring hospital and deliver, and then transfer mum and bub, or try to get them to the receiving hospital to the delivery ward, which is the preferred option,” Karen said.
“The third option is when the baby decides it doesn’t want to wait while on the plane and our nurses are equipped for that.”
One of Karen’s highlights of her 26 years working for the RFDS involved delivering a baby at Walgett Airport, when what was initially a routine transfer of a patient in early stages of labour quickly changed.
“We’d got the expectant mother and her partner onto the aircraft and had taxied down to the take-off point when mum’s water broke, so we made the call to call off the take-off,” Karen recalled.
“We just got back to the terminal and stopped the aircraft and the baby was delivered. Mum, dad and baby then spent the flight back to Dubbo getting to know one another, which was very special.”
Karen Barlow
In mid-2024 RFDS Flight nurse Micheal Harper delivered a baby while the aircraft was in the air.
"Being a midwife is a huge privilege. We get to empower, support and advocate for mothers and their families at such a transformative time of their lives,” Micheal said.
“Supporting women in the aeromedical setting adds extra complexities such as the women not having their support person with them, anxiety about flying or just about having the baby before they get to their destination and without their support person. Through expert clinical care, emotional support and a calm and reassuring presence, we can relieve some of these fears.
“I recently transferred a woman in early labour from a small rural hospital to a larger birthing centre. Her baby had other plans and decided to make a rapid appearance into the world not long after take-off. It was such a calm birth, and mum got to have skin to skin cuddles until we reached our destination."
Often for Flight Nurses, their involvement in a birth ends when they deliver the expectant mother to hospital, so they don’t get to hear the joyous news of the arrival of a healthy boy or girl.
However, for Kerry Ukena, a chance encounter allowed her to find out the exciting news.
“We went to Lightning Ridge to get a young mum and her partner. She’d gone into premature labour and needed to be taken to Dubbo. We got her down to the hospital without a problem, but I wasn’t able to stay for the labour because we had another tasking so I didn’t find out how it all went,” Kerry said.
“A few days later I was back at Lightning Ridge to pick up a patient to transfer him, and he was so excited because he had a new great grandchild. It turned out he was the grandfather of the woman I had transferred days earlier, so he was showing my pictures and telling me how it went. He was so excited.”
For Flight Nurse Lydia Newton, one of her highlights involved reuniting a new mum with her baby. Lydia was tasked with taking the mother from Dubbo to Sydney to see her boy.
“The woman had birthed a beautiful baby boy the day before via Caesarean section and he had some respiratory distress and required transfer for ongoing treatment. This was a stressful time for the first-time mum, being separated from her baby and she was in still in pain herself,” Lydia explained.
“That transfer certainly opened my eyes to the ability of a mother to put herself aside for the sake of her child. Her priority was just getting to Sydney to be there for her baby. We provided her with plenty of reassurance and care, and she was so grateful we were getting her to her son. She was delivered direct to the door of her baby's nursery bed where tears were shed by all people involved. It was a very special moment.”
For the RFDS in NSW, having our flight nurses be fully trained and ready to deal with all aspects of pre and post-natal care is critical to our ability to deliver the finest care to the furthest corner.
“You always hope deliveries go smoothly but it doesn’t always happen that way,” Senior Flight Nurse Karen Barlow said.
“Our flight nurses are trained to deal the complications that can occur during birth including shoulder dystocia, breech births and post-partum haemorrhaging. And all of this can be occurring 18,000 feet in the air in the confines of the cabin. After the birth, they’re not just dealing with mum, but also with a newborn baby.
“It’s a challenging situation, but for all of flight nurses who find themselves playing a role in the birth of a new baby, it’s something really special that will always stay with them.”
