Thanks to an invitation from our friends at the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) Heart of Australia founder Dr Rolf Gomes shared how he started on his pathway towards achieving the dream that he’s made reality – delivering specialist medical services to access-starved bush communities.

Dr Gomes shared his insights on the Sunshine Coast on May 20, when he addressed almost 200 supporters of the RFDS local committee where guests included former graziers and farmers with personal knowledge of health service access issues in “the bush”.

Dr Gomes described how after launching the Heart of Australia project in October 2014, he was surprised only one of the thirteen towns it visits had a cardiac stress testing service in operation.

Dr Gomes told his audience that in just under 3 years Heart of Australia had identified that as many as 12 out of 3,000 patients seen by the program had “been saved” from life-threatening heart attack because of the availability of its diagnostic equipment.

In a formal thank you by former State Premier Russell Cooper, he told Dr Gomes that Heart of Australia had become “the most inspirational” change in health services access since the birth of the 90-year-old RFDS.