Royal Flying Doctor Service says $10 million needed to have Geraldton-based facility

The Royal Flying Doctor Service estimates it would need to raise $10 million in order to build a Geraldton-based facility after community consultation last week. On Thursday, more than 60 people attended a consultation meeting to share their views on how the RFDS should increase its services in Geraldton. The closest base to Geraldton is in Meekatharra, where 1851 patients were retrieved from the Mid West last year. The conference, which was run by RFDS chief executive Judith Barker, had residents express their desire for a locally based service. More than half the attendees at the event either needed the service at one stage or had a family member who needed help through the RFDS. Ms Barker said a Geraldton-based facility “would make sense” and their modelling had shown it would be the second-busiest base in WA behind Perth. However, she said it would not be a quick process and the RFDS would need a partnership with the State Government on top of raising $10m for the facility. It was estimated to take 36 months for a facility to get up and running. The RFDS plans to explore all the avenues possible, leaving the door open for an RFDS helicopter to be based in Geraldton. It comes following calls from the community to the State Government to consider basing a rescue chopper in the Mid West. During his visit to Geraldton last week, Premier Roger Cook rejected calls for a helicopter, saying advancements in technology meant helicopters could service most of the state. “As the former minister for health, I’m acutely aware of the needs for patient evacuation in the Mid West, and we’ve been looking at chopper-based solutions in relation to that for many years,” he said. “The technology in relation to our rescue helicopter fleet has advanced significantly and our three new choppers all have a range of up to 700km. “We’ll be advised by the experts of where the best place is to deploy the choppers to make sure that we can get to people as soon as possible in the event of an emergency.”