Posted in Retrievals on Feb 7th, 2009
There is something special about being a founder member. I was privileged recently to be one of the first members of the spanking new GoodLife gym in North Adelaide. Yesterday I had another unique moment – my first shift with the South Australian (Statewide) Retrieval Service. Cue the fanfare and drum-roll being followed by an [...]
Posted in Retrievals on Jan 27th, 2009
So far I have covered how we get to our patients by helicopter or plane. Now, a little about what we do at the scene before leaving on the return leg. The range of preparation made for us varies enormously. When arriving at a primary, we may be the first healthcare providers but usually some [...]
Posted in Retrievals on Jan 21st, 2009
Yet another year has flown by and it’s almost time to move on again. In less than two weeks I will be leaving the RAH ICU and starting my new job with the newly formed South Australian Retrieval Service. Fortunately I won’t be going far, and for at least the first month or so, we [...]
Posted in Retrievals on Jan 4th, 2009
I’ve been doing yet more work for Mediflight and the jobs will prompt the subject matter of this posting. Yesterday and today I have been out to what we call a “Primary”. These are tasked by SAAS directly in response to feedback from the ambulance crew who attend vehicle accidents and trauma cases. This means [...]
Posted in Retrievals on Dec 22nd, 2008
Time for the fourth post in this series on my work for the RAH Mediflight Retrieval Service. This one will cover the organisation and conduct of fixed wing missions. We go by plane if we have to go much further than 200km. At this range it becomes quicker than going by helicopter especially if there [...]
Posted in Retrievals on Dec 6th, 2008
Welcome to the next installment in this series of posts about working for the Mediflight Retrieval Service. Last time I covered the organisational processes behind team deployment. This posting will be about going out by rotary-wing aka helicopter. We use this platform for 2 main purposes. Firstly to go to hospitals within 200km of Adelaide, [...]
Posted in Retrievals on Nov 22nd, 2008
This is the second in a series of posts providing detailed information on what working for the Retrieval Service entails. Last time I wrote about the referral sources for our patients. This posting will cover what happens next – the arrangements and phone calls we have to make before we go out. The most important [...]
Posted in Retrievals on Nov 6th, 2008
Since I was up all last night on yet another Retrieval, I thought it would be interesting to go through an aspect of our work. This posting will be about the first stage in one of our “missions”. Mediflight offers a range of services as I covered in a previous posting. We retrieve criticially ill [...]
Posted in Retrievals on Oct 28th, 2008
Continuing on from the previous posting, it might now be helpful to run through an average job so you can get an idea of what we actually do on these retrieval jobs, or “missions” as they are called in the trade. It all starts with a referral. If our presence is required at an accident [...]
Posted in Retrievals on Oct 28th, 2008
A couple of posts have appeared on here now about my work for the RAH Mediflight Retrieval Service and I thought it was about time we covered what the job entails and why such a facility exists. Mediflight was founded in the mid-1970s to provide a means of transporting the critically unwell around South Australia. [...]
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