Gold Coast medicos ride to the rescue of patients with specialist private service

A GOLD Coast private medical rescue service is at the forefront of meeting growing demand for specialist care in remote places throughout the Pacific Rim and southeast Asia.

Medical Rescue is a group of volunteer doctors and nurses who offer specialised medical services and have their own air ambulance fleet, pictured is Dr Glenn McKay Pic by David Clark

A GOLD Coast private medical rescue service is at the forefront of meeting growing demand for specialist care in remote places throughout the Pacific Rim and southeast Asia.

Medical Rescue, which was founded in 2003 by Dr Glenn McKay, has seen rapid growth over the past five years providing services as diverse as driver training for Queensland Fire and Emergency Services personnel through to evacuating sick people off cruise ships.

Dr McKay, who trained in New Zealand before moving to Australia, said he started Medical Rescue after working in rural and remote areas and realising there was a gap in the market for advanced medical care in places such as skifields, mine sites and oil rigs.

“I realised there was a niche that wasn’t being filled,” he said. “That’s where Medical Rescue started.”

He said as governments centralised health services more and more, there was also a growing demand from private companies and the public for high-level care in the outdoors in Australia and overseas.

“There are so many places that people are undertaking high risk activities and there are nowhere near the tertiary facilities that there are in the city,” Dr McKay said.

“Australian businesses are expanding beyond Australia and with that still need to have access to the health services that they are accustomed to here in Australia so we looked at bridging that gap.”

The business calls for an operation that spans the length and breadth of the country as well as overseas.

At any one time Medical Rescue might be flying a patient from Papua New Guinea back to Australia, running a first aid course at a mine in Moranbah, or be on standby to send out a helicopter from Broome to retrieve an injured worker on an oil rig.

The company is currently contracted to provide a 24-hour rescue service from Broome for Shell workers at oil and gas rigs off the coast.

“When they (Shell) are putting their workers so far offshore, they need to know they can get them back when they get sick so we’re contracted with the helicopter operator to be up there to provide a 24-hour rescue service so our staff are on 15 minutes notice to be airborne to fly offshore to retrieve anyone that is unwell on the rigs,” Dr McKay said.

Another growing part of its business is providing rescue services to skifields across Australia and New Zealand. Last winter Medical Rescue treated 2000 patients, a service traditionally provided by local general practitioners. But that had changed as the public demanded a higher level of care.

“There is also increasing accountability of tourism operators for the outcomes of guests so there is a need to continually improve what sort of clinical services are provided,” he said.

In 2011 a training academy was established leading to further growth for the business in helicopter specific training for medical staff and driver training for government and emergency services staff.

Dr McKay said it will launch its own mobile app this year, whereby a sick or injured person can activate an alarm and wherever they are in the world, Medical Rescue can find the best way of getting the patient to the hospital and supply the staff there with the individual’s insurance and medical records.

He said the company had expanded its turnover “exponentially” over the past five years and he was excited for what the future might hold.

“It has been such a rapid expansion for us over the last two years even, to think what we’ll be doing in three years time is exciting,” he said.