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Toll Ambulance Rescue has notched up a major milestone, reaching over 40,000 flight hours across NSW and the ACT.
The NSW Ambulance Aeromedical Rescue Helicopter service, operated by Toll since 2017, has flown over 24,000 critical care missions with its fleet of eight Leonardo AW139 helicopters, and performs more than 2,500 patient missions per year.
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“This is a great milestone for NSW Ambulance and Toll, which together deliver a world-class aeromedical service for patients across NSW – undertaking complex missions in some of the state’s most difficult to access areas and harshest terrains,” said NSW Ambulance chief executive Dr Dominic Morgan.
“This partnership enables NSW Ambulance’s highly qualified doctors, critical care paramedics and flight nurses to train and work alongside Toll’s pilots and aircrew officers to deliver exceptional out-of-hospital care to critically unwell and injured patients.”
Toll Ambulance Rescue, which operates from four bases in Sydney, Orange, Wollongong and Canberra, provides full-scale emergency medical service operations, alongside search and rescue, inter-hospital transport, and newborn and paediatric emergency transport.
Scott Watkins, senior vice president of Toll Aviation, praised the “skill, dedication and collaboration” of the ambulance rescue staff.
“This aviation and service milestone gives pause to reflect on the incredible work that the team undertakes every day to ensure the service is available for the communities of NSW and ACT, and a testament to the strength of the partnership between NSW Ambulance, ACT Ambulance and Newborn and Paediatric Emergency Transport service (NETS) and Leonardo Helicopters,” he said.
The news comes after the NSW government earlier this year announced a $158.8 million investment into three new regional NSW Ambulance helicopter bases to be built in Port Macquarie, Wagga Wagga and Moruya.
NSW Health Minister Ryan Park said the new bases will “further improve our response capability right across the state, whether it’s a medical emergency, a motor vehicle accident or a natural disaster”.
“This budget delivers on this challenging but important work to rebuild essential health services and will help drive better health outcomes for patients in regional and rural parts of the state by providing quicker access for NSW Ambulance critical care medical teams to incidents in remote locations,” he said.
“With over $285 million now dedicated to this project, we are proud to back in the incredible work of our NSW Ambulance crews with the facilities and resources they need to do their jobs safely and effectively.”
