Healthcare, Science and Technology
The Australian Government gives all citizens access to a high standard of health care. The major part of the national health care system is called Medicare. Medicare ensures that all Australians have access to free or low-cost medical, optometrical (офтальмологический) and hospital care while being free to choose private health services. Australia’s public hospital system is jointly funded by the Australian Government and state and territory governments and is administered by state and territory health departments.
State and Territory governments have primary responsibility for operating hospitals, school, dental, maternal and child health programs, occupational health and safety services (производственная медицина), disease control, and health inspections.
Australian boys born between 1994 and 1996 can expect to live for about 75 years, and girls born in the same period for 81 years.
HealthInsite
Australians can now access quality health information on the Internet through HealthInsite - a new web site that has been developed by the federal Department of Health and Aged Care.
HealthInsite is a gateway (доступ) to credible (надёжный) information on a broad range of health issues. Comprehensive information on topics such as cancer, diabetes, kidney disease, child health, stroke and heart disease can all be found on the site. This information is provided from leading health information providers from the public and private sectors.
Doctor in chains
All three candidates for the title of Australia's first doctor were convicted felons (осуждённые преступники). John Irving, transported for larceny (воровство), became assistant to the naval surgeons (хирурги) of the First Fleet. He was the first convict to be freed, in 1790, and did fine work at the General Hospital until he died five years later.
William Redfern, transported in 1801 for taking part in a naval mutiny (мятеж), was the first to practice privately. His skills soon gained him a pardon (помилование) and on 1 September 1808 he was granted Australia's first medical certificate. Redfern did much to improve hygiene in the colony, and he also fought successfully for full civil and legal rights for former convicts.
Australia's first, full-time, general practitioner was William Bland, who had been transported for killing an opponent in a duel. He set up practice when he was pardoned (помилован) in 1815.
Rum hospital
Among the first temporary shelters built on the shores of Sydney Cove within days of the First Fleet's arrival in January 1788 were hospital tents. Although First Fleeters had remained remarkably healthy throughout the voyage, the tents were soon filled with people suffering from scurvy (цынга) and dysentery.
In 1811, in exchange for the right to import 45 000 gallons of 'rum' (which meant all kinds of spirits), three entrepreneurs – Garnham Blaxcell, Alexander Riley and D’arcy Wentworth (the Principal Surgeon) – contracted (подрядились) to build a three-block hospital in Sydney. The building was completed in April 1816, but for its first three years the hospital had no inside lavatories and often patients could be seen crawling (ползти) to outside privies (туалет).
The 'Rum Hospital' was too big for the colony, and so in 1829 its north wing became Parliament House. The central building was torn down (снесён) in 1879 to make way for the present Sydney Hospital and the south wing, used as a mint (монетный двор) from 1855 to 1926, is now a museum.
Epidemic
Many epidemics have swept Australia during the past 200 years (including bubonic plague, small-pox, chickenpox, measles, Asiatic flu and scarlet fever) but by far the most serious was the influenza (грипп) epidemic of 1918-19. The disease, which devastated (опустошила) the world during these years, arrived in Melbourne in January 1919, probably brought by soldiers returning from World War I. Forewarned (будучи предупреждены) by the terrible toll (жертвы) on the other side of the world, the authorities promptly brought in regulations. It became compulsory for everyone to wear in public a gauze (марлевая) mask. Schools, churches, racecourses (ипподромы), libraries and many hotels closed.
New South Wales drinkers were luckier than most since their pubs stayed open, although patrons (завсегдатаи) had to drink quickly because they could spend only five minutes at the bar. Victims' houses were quarantined for four days, during which time no one who lived there could leave. Quarantine camps were set up in cities all over Australia and travellers had to wait a week in camps at state borders for any symptoms to appear. 10263 died during the epidemic.
Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia
The Royal Flying Doctor Service of Australia (RFDS, informally known as The Flying Doctors) is an air ambulance service for those living in the remote inland areas of Australia. It is a not-for-profit organization which provides both emergency assistance and primary (первичный) health care to people who cannot easily access a hospital due to the distances of the outback (необжитая местность).
While Aborigines had learned to survive the arid (засушливый) interior of the Australian continent, European immigrants found the isolation hard to bear (вынести). Giant pastoral (пастбищный) ranches of thousands of square miles meant women and children often had no outside human contact for months at a time.
In the early years, one of the biggest worries of people in the outback was becoming ill. It was not until the appearance of a clergyman named John Flynn (1880 –1951) that some form of medical service became available to people in remote areas of the country. Flynn's missionary work involved the establishment of hospitals in bush communities. This, however, did not help those who lived far from any major community. In his public speaking he would often retell the tragic circumstances that had befallen (случаться) bush settlers.
John Flynn
On one occasion a ranch hand (работник) with a spear embedded (вонзить) in his chest was carried in a hammock slung (подвешенный) between horses to Oodnadatta, 640 kilometers away. There he waited two weeks for a train to take him 970 kilometers to a hospital in Adelaide.
One of the world's most unusual operations was performed at the remote Western Australian settlement of Halls Creek on 28 July 1917. Jimmy Darcy was a stockman (ковбой) in Western Australia. After being found injured by some friends, he was transported over 30 miles (12 hours), to the nearest town, Halls Creek. Here, Darcy was met by F.W. Tuckett, the Postmaster, and the only man in the settlement trained in first aid. Tuckett said there was nothing he could do for injuries so serious, and tried unsuccessfully to contact doctors at Wyndham, and then Derby, by telegraph. He eventually got through to Dr Holland, who sat nearly 4000 kilometres away at the end of a telegraph wire in Perth. Through communication by Morse code, Dr Holland guided Tuckett through two operations using the only sharp instrument available, a pen knife. Every instruction and question had to be transmitted in Morse code, from operator to operator. It took Tuckett seven hours to complete the operations.
Then Dr Holland travelled 10 days to Halls Creek on a boat for cattle transport, a Model T Ford (первая модель Форда), a horse drawn carriage (повозка), and even on foot. When he arrived he found that although the operations were successful, Darcy, weakened by undiagnosed malaria and an abscessed appendix, had died the day before.
The tragedy elbowed (потеснила) even war news from many Australian newspapers and more than any other single event attracted nationwide attention to the urgent need for doctors, hospitals and nurses in outback Australia.
Flight and radio
Victorian Lieutenant Clifford Peel had heard Flynn's public speeches and sent Flynn a letter explaining how he had seen a missionary doctor visiting isolated patients using a plane. Flynn immediately published Peel's idea in the church's newsletter. Sadly Peel died in combat in France in 1918, probably not even knowing the impact (влияние) he had in the creation of an Australian icon (символ).
Along with aviation, another new technology was being developed that could replace the complicated means of communication by telegraph. Together with a brilliant young engineer Alfred Traeger (1895 – 1980), Flynn began experiments with radio in the mid 1920s to enable remote outposts (отдаленное поселение) to contact a centralised medical base.
Alfred Traeger
The result of this collaboration was the pedal-driven Morse radio transmitter and receiver -- transceiver -- (радиопередатчик и приемник, использующий азбуку Морзе и питаемый электричеством, вырабатываемым кручением педалей) with a range of 300 miles, which most homesteads (ферма) could afford.
The transceiver
Traeger and Flynn traveled the country installing the two-way radios and showing settlers how to use them to call mission headquarters. The transceiver, with the use of airplanes, made possible a system of regular long-distance medical consultations and the flying of doctors to patients in emergencies.
Alfred Traeger
By 1928, Flynn had gathered sufficient funds through fundraising (сбор пожертвований) activities to launch an experiment known as the Aerial Medical Service (AMS) which was to run for a single year. This experiment was based in Cloncurry, Queensland.
Its supporters included industrialist H.V. McKay, medical doctor George Simpson, and Hudson Fysh, one of the founders of Queensland and Northern Territory Air Service, the company which would go on to become QANTAS (сейчас – национальная авиакомпания Австралии). QANTAS supplied the first aircraft to the new organisation, a De Havilland model DH50, dubbed "Victory". QANTAS charged two shillings per mile for use of the Victory during the first year of the project.
Dr George Simpson (left), his wife Nesta and John Flynn, c.1950
On 15 May 1928 pilot Arthur Affleck, accompanied by Dr Kenyon Welch, made his first "Aerial Medical Service” trip to Julia Creek, 134 km away. They flew in an open cockpit (кабина пилота), single engine biplane, "Victory". In the first year, pilot Arthur Affleck and Dr Kenyon Welch flew 28 129 kilometres to attend 255 patients.
The first Flying Doctor pilot, Arthur Affleck, had no navigational aids, no radio and only a compass and inadequate maps, if any. He navigated by landmarks such as fences, rivers, river beds, dirt roads or just wheel tracks and telegraph lines. He also flew in an open cockpit, fully exposed to the weather, behind the doctor's cabin.
John Flynn finally retired and died in 1951 in Sydney, and was cremated and his remains placed under a large boulder (камень, валун) from the Devil's Marbles. Unfortunately, the Northern Territory Department of Public Works had taken the rock from a site sacred to its Aboriginal owners. After many years of negotiations the rock was returned to its original location in 1998 and replaced with one acceptable to the Aboriginal people. John Flynn is buried at Mt Gillen near Alice Springs, the very centre of the vast territory to which he brought communication, medical comfort and pastoral care.
Flynn received an Order of the British Empire in 1933. He is featured on one side of the current Australian 20 dollar polymer note.
Success, and continued success
In 1932, the success from its operations in Cloncurry, and the increasing public awareness to this vital rural service, resulted in a push for a national network of flying doctors, hopefully with sponsorship from the government. In 1934, this was realised with the new Australian Aerial Medical Service opening up "Sections" across the nation. In 1942 it was renamed to Flying Doctor Service.
Until the 1960s the service predominantly hired aircraft, pilots and service technicians from contractors (подрядчики). After this point, the service moved on to purchasing its own equipment and employing its own pilots and mechanics.
The service became the first comprehensive air ambulance service in the world. During its first few decades the service relied heavily on community fundraising (сбор пожертвований), volunteer support and donations. This is still the mainstay (основа) of the services funding, but it benefits greatly from State and Federal Government subsidiaries.
The service today
Today, 80% of emergency evacuations are performed with only a nurse and pilot being present in person, a doctor directing such actions from a remote location.
The services include:
- on site (на месте) emergency first aid;
- safe transport to hospitals as needed;
- radio advice to remote situations (although most communication these days is by telephone);
- transportation of a general practitioner (терапевт) for regular clinical visits to remote areas;
- consultation, communication, and support for rural and remote doctors across Australia;
- inter-hospital transfer of patients.