Doctors on Demand will provide “telehealth’’ services to all 10,000 staff at Flight Centre

A Brisbane company which provides 24/7 access to doctors online has just inked what could be its biggest deal to date

A Brisbane company which provides 24/7 access to doctors online has just inked what could be its biggest deal to date.

Doctors on Demand revealed this week that it will be providing “telehealth’’ services to all 10,000 or so staff at Flight Centre.

Launched by pharmacists John Martin and John Neilson three years ago, the firm has a team of 20 physicians who can liaise remotely with patients at home or at the office and write prescriptions if needed.

Kirsty Garrett

CEO Kirsty Garrett (illustrated), who joined the company in January, said work with Flight Centre’s internal Healthwise Global division had kicked off six months ago.

“Our research shows that only 67 per cent of Millennials and 55 per cent of Generation Z have a GP, so this is perfect for this demographic in their team,’’ she said.

The tie-up with Flight Centre follows Doctors on Demand agreements with Allianz, Sigma Healthcare and HealthEngine.

Flight Centre’s Steve Cormack predicted the service would be embraced by staff. But he declined to discuss costs or forecast what kind of savings and productivity improvements might flow through to the bottom line.

NEW FACES

The former boss of Sydney-based UBank has been tapped to head up Suncorp’s banking and wealth division.

Suncorp announced the appointment of Lee Hatton on Friday as it also confirmed that Jeremy Robson, who took up the role of acting group CFO in May, has now got the gig permanently.

The news came a day after Suncorp revealed that the wonderfully-named Elmer Funke Kupper (try saying it quickly three times!) would join the board as a non-executive director. A former banker at ANZ, he previously headed up the ASX and Tabcorp.

Lee Hatton

TAKING CHARGE

Speaking of new gigs, the former boss of Compass Jets has landed at charity MND and Me Foundation.

George Hill has taken up the CEO’s role after running the Brisbane-based private jet charter business for less than a year. Before that he spent nearly 20 years with Surf Life Saving Queensland, including a three year stint as CEO.

He takes over from Paul Olds, who spent five years at the helm of MND and ME, which has raised more than $800,000 since 2014 to battle motor neurone disease, an incurable and terminal affliction.

ANCIENT DEVICE

City Beat can’t remember the last time we came across a fax machine, let alone one ironically involved with a tech firm.

But an operative from fund manager T. Rowe Price Associates dusted off one of the ancient devices this week to inform the ASX that the firm it had acquired nearly 7.3 million shares in Bevan Slattery’s Brisbane cloud services business Megaport.

We’re guessing that a PDF was unavailable.

Bevan Slattery

Anyway, the buying spree since mid-September has given T Rowe clients just over a 5 per cent stake in Megaport, which is in the midst of another capital raising.

The loss-making company announced plans last week to generate about $62 million to help drive its global expansion.

HOLIDAY CHEER

Greenie activists have wrapped up a week of global protests aimed at German industrial giant Siemens for its work with Adani.

But at least they injected a bit of humour and holiday good cheer in to their civil disobedience yesterday.

About 15 protesters rocked up to the Siemens office in Mackay, unfurling the usual banners and chanting the usual chants to annoy staff as they went to work.

In a nod to the season, they offered the Siemens troops Christmas bonbons and picnic snacks.

They even serenaded them with parody carols such as “Deck the state with solar panels’’ and chanted “all we want for Christmas is no Adani’’.

Siemens top guns are not amused. Last week it emerged that the company had urged its staff to avoid wearing anything which identifies their employer after protesters published names and contact details of several workers.