The Royal Flying Doctor Service works to reduce the disparity of health service access in rural and remote locations. As you can imagine, their service has only grown in importance since the beginning of the pandemic.
The man leading the RFDS’s national Covid-19 response is former Yass and Murrumbateman local Fergus Gardiner.
“I’m leading our national Covid response for the RFDS federally and I think on average I’ve got about 14 teams on the ground throughout rural and remote Australia.”
“It’s been a very busy 18 months,” he said.
Gardiner has a PhD in medicine, is trained in epidemiology and specialises in public health. He has been with the RFDS for nearly five years, where he currently holds the title of Director of Public Health and Research.
Whilst in 2020, the primary focus of the RFDS was retrieving suspected cases of Covid-19 from remote communities, they have now shifted their attention to ensuring these communities are getting adequate access to vaccines.
“Early February 2020 we did the first aeromedical retrieval for Covid I believe in the world, but certainly in Australia, for two patients over in Western Australia. Since that time we’ve done over 4000 retrievals for suspected Covid, with a further 400 of those coming back as positive Covid cases.”
“In 2020 we didn’t really know how this thing was going so anyone with symptoms in a remote community, often Aboriginal communities, we wanted to retrieve early because the effect of having Covid in some of these communities would be very severe. So rather than wait for the Covid test to come back, we’d get them out early and run the test. Just because the effect of having Covid in some of these communities would be catastrophic with high rates of chronic diseases that lead to more severe Covid.”
“That kept us out of trouble for most of 2020. We’re moving into our vaccination phase of our response to the pandemic and I’m leading that at the national level.”
“Throughout Australia as of this morning, we’ve put 26,000 vaccinations in arms, most of those have been done in the last couple of weeks. In addition to that we’ve provided 18,000 vials of Pfizer to other services just to keep them going because the demand, particularly in NSW, has been very high,” said Gardiner.
It’s a long way to come for a boy from the Yass Valley. Gardiner believes his upbringing helps him understand the demands of regional and remote communities and makes him so suited to his current role.
Attending Yass High School, he has fond memories of catching the Dog Trap Road bus. When he wasn’t at school, he could be found riding horses on the family property, the old Merryville, and playing rugby for the Yass Rams. He confessed a love for the Rams and hinted at returning to the club once his work settles down. His career started through the army soon after High School, where he began as a paratrooper.
Gardiner’s parting request to his hometown community is to get vaccinated.
“Many rural and remote areas have high rates of chronic disease that make certain individuals more susceptible to severe Covid-19. While you might be a young, fit person, you still have the potential to pass on Covid to people who might be at risk of developing these severe symptoms.”
“The game is to keep people healthy in their community and to do that we need everyone to line up, step up and get vaccinated,” he said.
To support Gardiner and his team, you can donate to the Royal Flying Doctor at https://www.flyingdoctor.org.au/donate/.
Max O’Driscoll
