Remote Indigenous Communities reinventing care
How can ambulance care work for remote First Nations communities?
1998-2001
Imagine the scenario of people having a heart attack or being seriously injured and emergency health care responses being hours, if not, a day or two away. Imagine in the absence of an ambulance, being carried in a rusty old earth moving truck. Imagine being a sole health worker and having to try to keep someone alive overnight with limited equipment. Imagine living in a community with no resident health workers. This was the experience of many remote First Nations communities in Far North Queensland.
In 1998 the Queensland Ambulance Service (QAS) assisted by Dr. Leanne Craze commenced conversations with First Nations communities in Cape York, the Gulf of Carpentaria and the Torres Strait about how to address the lack of pre-hospital emergency care. Over a period of 5 years, communities were invited to work with QAS to design services that would work and make sense in their context.