Aerial medical services

The Northern Territory (NT) has 2 aerial medical services that can rapidly transport medical teams and patients in need of life-saving treatment.

Top End

Careflight NT is a service that helps people who are seriously ill or injured and need urgent medical attention.

They use planes or helicopters to transport patients from remote communities or small hospitals to the Royal Darwin Hospital.

The service is available 24 hours a day and is run by emergency and critical care specialists.

Read more on the Careflight NT website.

Central Australia

In Central Australia, the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) and the Alice Springs Hospital (ASH) work together to provide retrieval services.

Critical care doctors from the Medical Retrieval and Consultation Centre (MRaCC) offer 24 hour a day phone support and help to coordinate and prioritise retrieval teams to people in:

• communities
• mine sites
• cattle stations
• roadhouses.

When someone needs to be taken to a hospital, the RFDS is called.

Doctors from ASH will go with the RFDS flight crews to help care for critically ill patients.

If a patient needs highly specialised care, the MRaCC and RFDS can arrange to transfer them to major hospitals in Adelaide or Darwin.

For further general information about the MRaCC services, email mrcc.director@nt.gov.au.

Visiting medical services

In addition to medical retrieval flights, you can meet with a visiting medical service.

These are regular charter flights throughout the NT to remote communities.

The flights enable visits of GPs, nurses, allied health and hospital specialist teams.