Recent storms have caused a fault in power lines approximately 120km south of Broken Hill. The resulting power outage impacting large parts of Far Western NSW also coincides with many of the communities we support with primary health and aeromedical support.
With nearly a century of experience delivering vital care under challenging circumstances, we have responded to what we understand may be a prolonged power outage by:
- Using the generator at our Broken Hill base to ensure our local operations can continue to run smoothly, including our aeromedical retrievals, primary healthcare clinics and the CBMC.
- In addition to our primary generator, we have also acquired a secondary generator to provide redundancy in support of our Broken Hill maintenance capability.
- Working with fuel providers to ensure a consistent supply of essential fuel reserves for our base infrastructure and airports.
- Working with our far west airport operators to ensure we have adequate airport infrastructure that supports ongoing operations to those communities we serve.
- Actively coordinating with other stakeholders and service suppliers that support far west communities.
Based on our investigations so far, we have confirmed that many of the airports we attend have generator or manually operated fuel pumps, and generator or solar powered lights for nighttime operations. At this stage, there is no material impact to our operations.
All of our Broken Hill base phone numbers and communications lines remain operational; however, we understand there may be issues with telecommunications in affected communities. If communities are unable to use our 24-hour medical emergency number 1800 DRS FLY (1800 377 359), for example, if they can rely on satellite phones, they can contact the RFDS on +61 8 8088 1188.
We will also be working closely with the communities we run clinics with, to continue to deliver services where facilities have been unaffected or can be run on generators. We aren’t able to provide an update on which clinics are affected as the situation continues to evolve on a day-by-day basis. In the event we are unable to attend a planned clinic, we will look at appropriate alternatives such as Telehealth or reschedule appointments to a later time.
In addition, we are collaborating with local emergency management teams and authorities in Broken Hill and surrounding areas to respond and adapt to the challenges presented by the outage.
It is our intention to maintain a high level of service and certainty for our communities in what we appreciate may be a difficult few weeks.
