WHEN the Royal Flying Doctor Service started in 1928, its mission was to take doctors to the isolated people of the inland.

If a doctor could have wings, he could overcome the tyranny of distance and rise above floodwater during “the wet” in the channel country. In doing so, he could save lives and bring a better quality of health to the outback people.

Over the years, the charter has extended and now the Royal Flying Doctor Service is not limited to the vast inland tracts of Australia. In fact, there is a flying doctor base in Cairns.

The Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) is an aerial medical organisation best known for its emergency evacuation flights. Life-saving dramas are daily events, with emergencies ranging from road, mining and cattle station accidents to difficult births and sudden illnesses. It also offers comprehensive health care and community service, and it doesn’t operate solely in the outback. If you’re travelling between Brisbane and Cairns and need to be airlifted to a hospital in Brisbane, chances are that the RFDS will provide your transportation.

To provide its incredible service, the RFDS has doctors, pilots and nurses on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Discover more about this unique Australian organisation by visiting the RFDS Visitors Centre at the flying doctor base in Cairns.

The Cairns base is the largest of the six Queensland RFDS bases. It covers an area extending north to Torres Strait, south to the Sarina region and west to Normanton.

Each year, RFDS Cairns is responsible for transporting more than 1400 patients to hospital by air. As well as providing emergency services and regular medical clinics for outlying areas, the RFDS gives radio consultations as well. To do its job, the Cairns service uses three aircraft and flies almost 1,100,000km a year from the Cairns base. The RFDS King Air which answers the calls for help is packed with equipment, making it an airborne intensive care unit, capable of giving immediate medical attention to sick or injured patients while transporting them to larger medical centres.

The visitors centre, at Edge Hill near the botanical gardens, is open from 9.00am to 5.00pm Monday to Saturday (closed Sundays and public holidays). Tours are held every half hour. (The last tour starts at 4.30pm.) You’ll see a video showing a day in the life of the flying doctor, a museum and a merchandising outlet. By mid-year, it is expected the visitors centre will be moved to the general aviation section of the Cairns Airport, on the Captain Cook Highway at Aeroglen. Opening hours may be extended once the move is finalised. Any funds raised from the visitors centre go towards keeping the RFDS planes in the air.