OUTBACK HERO
Volunteer relied on in remote community to transport patients
IN the remote community of Yowah, Scott Shorten relies on his ute to drive patients to the airstrip to meet the Royal Flying Doctor Service.
Located in far-west Queensland, the small opal mining town is a 12-hour drive from Brisbane, the closest hospital is two hours away in Cunnamulla.
Yowah doesn’t have a medical centre and relies on the RFDS.
The town has 100 permanent residents and 450 residents in winter, peak opal mining season.
Mr Shorten won the 2018 RFDS Queensland Hero award for his work with the flying doctors in his community.
As part of the award, Mr Shorten received $5000 from Ergon Energy that he will use to get a van or trailer to better transport patients.
Yowah’s airport is located 4km out of town and Mr Shorten has been lying patients down in the back of his ute to take them to the airstrip.
“We have to get our patients to the plane, which is our biggest problem at the moment,” Mr Shorten said.
“So we’re trying to get a van or a trailer together. At the moment we’re just doing it in the back of the ute or something and they’re out in the elements, we need something covered up.
“We’re trying to put money together for that now. Hopefully with the money we got from Ergon Energy we’ll be able to get it together. It will probably cost $8000.”
The average age in Yowah is 65. Mr Shorten said the RFDS was a lifeline for its residents.
“We have a clinic here every Friday,” he said.
“Without that, all these people who live here who are getting older would have to leave where they love living, and grew up living, to move somewhere where it’s more urban.”
Mr Shorten said his family had worked with the RFDS since they moved to Yowah in the 1970s.
“My mother built the first RFDS medical chest, which in those days was a big tin box like a first aid kit,” he said.
“Then we built the first airstrip out here in the late ’70s.
“The flying doctor comes out every week for the clinic and I ran the clinic for a few years.
“These days I run all the evacuations because I’m part of the SES and the fire brigade.”
Mr Shorten said his first aid training helped during emergencies.
“If there is ever a medical emergency, we just call the flying doctors and go under their orders,” he said.
“You become very self-reliant.
“We all have our first aid training and when they have their clinics out here the nurses keep us up to date and give us a little extra training.”
If the flying doctors are at their base in Charleville, Mr Shorten said it took them 45 minutes to get to Yowah.
“Sometimes we have an ambulance come in from Cunnamulla and I’ll go drive out with the patient and meet them,” he said.
“We usually meet about halfway.”
Mr Shorten is also the town orderly and works as part of the Paroo council.
“This year has been phenomenal because of the amount of people in the west,” he said.
“For two reasons – they’ve done the coastal run for a couple of years and another reason is people see the drought on the news and they want to see how bad it really is.”
The local caravan park, which is also the shop and fuel station, holds duck races every Thursday night during tourist season.
“It costs people a dollar a duck and all the proceeds go to the flying doctors or towards resources the flying doctors need out here,” Mr Shorten said.
“We’ve raised about $3000 so far this year.”
Mr Shorten said it was a big shock for him to win the RFDS Queensland Hero award after he was nominated by his granddaughter.
“Everybody deserved to win it. I got a shock because a lot of people do a lot of big fundraising but I’m sort of feet on the ground,” he said.
“I like being in the background. The limelight isn’t my forte.
“I was accepting it for a whole group of us. I was just the man at the front – there’s always people behind.”
The RFDS Queensland Hero award was presented to Mr Shorten in front of more than 700 people, including Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, at the RFDS Wings for Life Gala in Brisbane.
“I had to buy a suit,” he laughed. “What use would I have for a suit out west?”
❝ Without (the RFDS), all these people who live here who are getting older would have to leave where they love living, and grew up, to move somewhere more urban. — Scott Shorten