CheckUP proudly acknowledges Angel Flight’s Rural Medi-Flight Service for making healthcare accessible to remote communities and beyond.

Over the past three years, Angel Flight has seen a significant increase in demand for transporting health professionals to rural and remote communities across Australia. In response, Angel Flight launched its Rural Medi-Flight service in early 2024—an innovative approach that flips the traditional model of flying rural patients into the city by instead flying doctors, allied health professionals, and medical students directly into rural and remote communities.

The Rural Medi-Flight service aims to address the urgent healthcare gap in rural Australia while providing busy health professionals with safe, cost-efficient, and reliable air transport to hard-to-reach communities. The service is designed to bring healthcare directly to the bush, minimising travel disruptions for medical practitioners and allowing them to spend more time with patients and less time in transit.

A professional and reliable service

The dedicated air service operates to the highest standards, under the Air Transport Category, and is flown by highly experienced airline pilots with Instructor and Check and Training Captain status. Angel Flight’s health professional passengers have consistently praised the professionalism and efficiency of the service, noting that the direct flights save them valuable time, allowing for more patient care and less travel stress.

One medical professional shared, “Being able to fly directly to the community without lengthy travel connections means I can dedicate more time to my patients. The professionalism of Angel Flight’s service makes the entire journey seamless and stress-free.”

The aircraft used for Rural Medi-Flights is a comfortable 8-10 seat, cabin-class, twin-engine plane affectionately named Kayla—a tribute to an Angel Flight passenger who flew 400 missions before sadly losing her health battle at the age of 23. Kayla’s size and versatility enables it to land at all country town airfields, making it perfect for reaching remote areas.

Making an impact across Queensland

Since its launch, the Rural Medi-Flight service has flown specialists, allied health professionals, and medical students to 22 communities and counting, from Birdsville to Blackall, Monto to Mornington, the service has become an invaluable lifeline for rural areas that previously faced long waiting times or extensive travel to access medical care.

Image: “Kayla” the aircraft used for Rural Medi-Flights at dusk.

A vision for national expansion

With the success of the Queensland-based service, Angel Flight is planning to expand the Rural Medi-Flight model into a national operation, with dedicated aircraft based in each capital city as well as key regional hubs like Cairns and Port Hedland. However, this ambitious vision will only be possible with government or significant private funding.

Until then, Angel Flight remains committed to sustaining its current operations, ensuring that doctors can continue reaching the communities that need care the most.

World Hearing Day is held on 3 March each year to raise awareness of how to prevent deafness and hearing loss and promote ear and hearing care across the world.

CheckUP manage the Healthy Ears: Better Hearing Better Listening (Healthy Ears) program. Providing services in urban, rural, regional, remote and very remote communities across Queensland, the Healthy Ears program aims to increase access to ear and hearing health services for the prevention, diagnosis, treatment and management of hearing health conditions in First Nations children and youth.

Otitis media (inflammation and/or infection of the middle ear) is the main condition contributing towards hearing loss in First Nations children. Experiencing hearing loss in childhood can affect speech and language development, and may lead to behavioural problems, early school leaving, limited employment options and increased contact with the criminal justice system (Burns and Thomson 2013).

Health promotion and regular routine ear and hearing health checks are integral for preventable hearing loss. Care for Kids’ Ears offers information and resources about ear health for parents, carers, teachers, teachers’ aides, early childhood workers and health professionals. The resources aim to help reduce rates of otitis media among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. These are free and available to order now on the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation’s website.

Left image: Michaela Pacini TCHHS Maternal Child and Family Nurse with patient. Right image: Kirsten Tregenza TCHHS Audiologist with patient.

Through the Healthy Ears program, CheckUP support the Torres and Cape Hospital and Health Service’s (TCHHS) Ear and Hearing Health multi-disciplinary team to facilitate children’s ear checks across rural and remote Cape communities.

Recently TCHHS’s Maternal Child and Family Nurse Michaela Pacini was joined by Audiologist Kris Tregenza, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health Practitioner Maria Smith and Pormpuraaw Health Worker Carolyn Brian at Pormpuraaw State School to perform ear health checks for all the children.

87% of children currently enrolled at Pormpuraaw State School and in community were screened over two and a half days. The children were excited to have their ears checked, with the team using the video otoscopy which is an examination which allows the kids to see live footage of the inside of their ear canals, followed by the tympanometry and audiometry ‘listening game’ equipment making the ear check fun and engaging.

It was a great outcome as no active ear infections were identified and just over a handful of kids need new Audiologist referrals.

Healthy Ears is managed by CheckUP and is supported by funding from the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care under the Indigenous Australians’ Health Programme.

Left image: Maria Smith TCHHS Health practitioner with patient. Right image: Kirsten Tregenza TCHHS Audiologist with patient.

BlueCare, a prominent provider of in-home care and aged care services in Queensland, have been navigating the challenges of workforce attraction in a competitive labour market.

With a team of around 8,500 employees and 500 volunteers, BlueCare recognises the need for a consistent influx of skilled personal care workers, especially as demand for services continues to rise.

To address workforce shortages and retention issues, BlueCare have adopted a “Grow Our Own” strategy, including forming partnerships with selected Registered Training Organisations (RTOs) to enhance training and placement opportunities for students.

However, while RTO partners provide access to a pool of students, challenges remain. Many students are not located in the areas where the organisation has immediate workforce needs. Additionally, placements do not always align with students career aspirations, resulting in lower conversion rates from placement to employment.

To tackle these issues, BlueCare has implemented several practical solutions. Including:

BlueCare have increased their educational partnerships from three to seven, ensuring better alignment with staffing needs. A placement request template has been introduced to gauge student availability and interest, while a workforce attraction flyer has been created to help students find job openings and submit inquiries.

Furthermore, the organisation has developed a strategy that enables personal care students to be hired as supervised (unqualified) personal carers prior to or during their placements, allowing them to gain valuable experience and receive paid shifts.

Existing employees also have opportunities to undertake paid training and participate in practical placements to upskill and advance their careers.

On top of these initiatives, BlueCare has seen success in its traineeship program, with over 433 traineeships initiated since February 2022 and a retention rate of 71%.

By continuing to foster a supportive learning environment, BlueCare aims to strengthen its workforce and ensure that qualified personal care workers are available to meet the needs of the community.