Health a priority
Flying hospital passes first test brilliantly

The triage team, Sqn-Ldr Paul Summers, Cpl Matt Chifley, ACW Erin Frow, Flt-Lt Andrew Huang and Flg-Off Simone Nussio prep a patient. Photos by Bill Cunneen, Army newspaper

Wg-Cmdr Greg Norman and Sqn-Ldr Robert Turnbull begin surgery.

By Leesha Furse

THE School of Infantry has been impressed with the level of service provided in the climate-controlled and self-sufficient tents of the Air Force’s Air Transportable Hospital (ATH).

About 35 personnel from 3ATH and a similar number of personnel from 395 Expeditionary Combat Support Wing provided medical support to the SoI at Singleton, throughout most of August. They finished setting up on August 9, and closed on August 25, taking on the regimental aid post’s normal sick-parade, supplemented with an inpatients ward, dental, pathology, radiology and minor surgery.

Singleton was chosen because it is not far from Richmond and, being a training base, it has a steady supply of out-patients and in-patients that tested the ATH’s unique functionality and engineering. 3ATH saw 440 outpatients and 21 inpatients over the three weeks.

2IC SoI Maj Peter Ham, said ATH had provided excellent medical support throughout their deployment.

“It also allowed trainees at the SoI to remain in the area while receiving medical and dental treatment and thereby to return to training as soon possible thereafter,” Maj Ham said.

“Keeping a casualty as close as possible to the front while receiving appropriate treatment is a key tenet of casualty evacuation and assists in the maintenance of morale of the casualty.”

Dr William Pollock, who works at the RAP at Singleton, was impressed with the set up of the ATH.

“It seemed like an enormous logistics exercise to get it up and running,” he said. “It was quite mindblowing.

CO Wg-Cmdr Greg Norman said the ATH has its own water treatment, sewerage treatment plant, electrical reticulation generators, shower and ablution blocks.

“The facility could be established anywhere, either within Australia or overseas, and from an infrastructure point of view the ATH is self-sufficient,” Wg-Cmdr Norman said.

“We needed a lot of people from Expeditionary Combat Support Squadrons, but from an engineering perspective, we have all the equipment.

He said that despite some initial anticipated problems with the electrical and water systems, the infrastructure worked very well.

“Before the airconditioning and heating [were working] it was one degree in the tents, which is obviously not good, as our pathology equipment can’t operate when it’s that cold. If we were in the tropics and it was 40 or 50 degrees outside it would be about 60 degrees in the tent, which would also pose problems.

The AFENG component have excelled themselves in getting us operational.”

Wg-Cmdr Norman said personnel had seen patients with coughs and colds, orthopaedic injuries and even some facial injuries. One of the patients was the Chief Clerk SoI, WO2 John Callcott, who had two wisdom teeth out.

“The staff were wonderful,” WO2 Callcott said.

“They were very professional and thorough with their clinical duties. I left with the same smile I arrived with, less two back teeth.

“I thanked the dentist for the ‘almost’ painless experience and was happy to shake hands with him and his staff.”

3ATH personnel also took part in a mass casualty simulation in the last few days of operations.

Wg-Cmdr Norman said the ATH capability has been around, in-principle, for some time.

“The ATH has been set up at Richmond at the edge of the airfield, but this is the first time it has been set up and run outside of Richmond,” he said.

“We’ve got a different set of walls, however the quality of health care delivered is no different to what we provide on a day-to-day basis at Richmond.”

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