When Heart of Australia launched its latest mobile clinic, HEART 5, the goal was simple, to deliver better health for rural and remote Australia.
Thanks to its world-first battery-powered CT scanner from Philips and the support of I-MED Radiology and Resources Safety and Health Queensland, HEART 5 has been doing just that.
Since its launch five months ago, the mobile respiratory clinic pulled by a DAF XF 530 from PACCAR Australia, has seen over 1000 patients and travelled over 20,000km.
Heart of Australia’s head of operations and business development, Ewan Wylie, believes without HEART 5 coming to these rural outposts, current, former and retired mine and quarry workers may not receive the treatment they need.
“When we come out to these rural towns, the people coming forward for testing typically haven’t had routine medical checks, and often struggle just to get into their GP for a basic check-up, let alone access the scans that we can deliver,” he said.
“But, there’s a real camaraderie here with the retired miners, still looking after each other and encouraging each other to come forward in Collinsville. We want to see that spread across all of our other regions”
“HEART 5 means that Australians living in tiny towns of less than a 1000 people suddenly have access to the same type of services that we expect in any of our major metropolitan hospitals.”
PACCAR Australia has supported Heart of Australia since its inception in 2014, providing two Kenworth K200 prime movers for HEART 1 and HEART 2; and two DAF XF 530s for HEART 4 and HEART 5.