The expansion of the mental health services was one of the major achievements for the Royal Flying Doctor Service South Eastern Section in the last year.
The RFDS SE Annual General Meeting, held in Broken Hill on November 28, heard that the mental health team along with the new Alcohol and Other Drug services conducted 2335 face-to-face sessions with patients, 600 telehealth consultations and 638 remote clinics in the last financial year from July 1 2017 to June 30 2018.
RFDS SE President Ruth Sandow said the Annual General Meeting offered an opportunity to reflect on the work of the past and look to the future.
“In celebrating our 90th anniversary this year, we remembered our founder the Reverend John Flynn’s values of compassion, innovation and solidarity with those on the land, and realised that we can apply them to the contemporary challenges we now face,” Mrs Sandow said.
“While our emergency medical retrieval service is still central to what we do, we’re also listening to the needs of our community and adapting what we do accordingly.”
“The people we care for, living in regional and remote Australia, are struggling with one of the worst droughts in living memory.”
“To best support them, the RFDS is responding, offering mental health services and alcohol and other drugs treatment. The community is embracing our teams and they’re helping to make a positive impact to people’s lives.”
Other services that grew rapidly in the last year were primary healthcare including GP clinics and dental care.
Further results from the Annual General Meeting show the RFDS SE:
- Flew 5.1 million kilometres in 17 aircraft, operated 10 road vehicles and one dental van.
- Delivered an average eight emergency evacuations each month.
- Completed 8,206 inter-hospital patient transfers
- Conducted 4,804 clinics
- Completed 38,565 consultations
- Answered more than 4,600 telehealth calls
- Completed 5,816 dental patient visits
- Conducted 93 dental clinics
For more details click here to download the NSW/ACT Year in Review 2017/18 and the Financial Report 2017/18.
