A Great Cause

Hi Gary,
sorry to hear that your daughter has been injured. Where was she working? Trust that she will fully recover, and quickly; and that she will be able to continue to do the work she obviously enjoys (otherwise she wouldn't be there, would she!)
regards

Couldn't agree more. The Simpson Desert Bike Challenge also raises $ for RFDS.
However. Worth reading the news today re funds being diverted from RFDS in the name of "privatisation" and "competition.' I think this is something all explore Oz followers should be concerned about.

Check today's Australian. Under heading. "Rivals undercut RFDS"
The article begins
"THE future of the Royal Flying Doctor Service is under a cloud as private operators attempt to seize lucrative government contracts in three states, forcing the not-for-profit organisation to once again ask for commonwealth protection and greater financial support."

I have no idea about the accuracy of the reports, but The Australian must be reasonably credible. From previous results from privatizing services, I'd sat there were grounds for us to be concerned.

It makes me insane with anger that the RFS is not fully funded by Government, but you get over that and donate.

Hi Gary. Hope your daughter gets better soon, and she will being in great hands with the RFDS. Our 4WD Club have a raffle every meeting and ALL proceeds from that go to the RFDS. When we have a function or our training days, all money raised from that goes straight to the RFDS. When we hit the $500 mark in that kitty we send off a cheque. Not that we need their service here in Wagga, but a lot of our members go into the outback, and lets hope they never need the RFDS but we are proud to donate that money all the time. Sometime we can donate as much as a couple of thousand dollars a year, which is alot for a little club like ours.
Anyway good luck to you daughter, hope she is feeling better soon.
Karen

It looks like a Singapore Company may get the fixed wing part of the flying Doctor service. IE supplying planes and Pilots.
This is where the flying Dr made its money to help keep it going (along with our donations). IE charging the states for the air ambulance part.
Any profits will now go to the private company that wins the tender and not back to the Flying Doc.
I suggest that this great service will slowly disintegrate into chaos as has been done with the Care flight service out of Orange NSW.

I am skeptical to say the least about this so called improvement.

.

I have now read the Australian report and have great concern about this!

Why does it always have to come down to the lowest $ tender without full appreciation of the quality of service?

I have worked in a business sector which provided Government-funded services and saw first-hand how the Government spent megabucks without getting appropriate returns from less-than-ethical contracted providers.

In industry we rarely awarded contracts to the lowest $ tenderer because we knew that we would not get the quality that we wanted ..... tight specifications notwithstanding.

The frustration is not knowing what I can effectively do about it!

Apologies to Gary, while relevant, this is starting to steal the thread. I think the topic deserves a thread ogf its own with a heading that will bring it to everyone's attention, so I will start a new thread for it. Contributors to the discussion might like to re-post when the new thread appears