S.TRUEMAN PhD THESIS 2016

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While their experiences to date, was various degrees of ‘roll out’, they were enthusiastic about the future due to technological advancements to date. Their preliminary experiences were confirmatory of their faith in the future: People who are in remote communities will have greater access, will have to travel less … for appointments, et cetera, and … [a] more efficient mechanism, by way of giving and administering medication, et cetera. When we’ve got people on screen … it can be done by videoconferencing. [T19, p. 9] Best thing is obviously using mediums such as videoconferencing. I think that’s quite an effective way … of bringing in the expertise … It’s a virtual multidisciplinary team … a virtual model of care using videoconferencing is the way to go. [T19, p. 8] 7.4.2 Facilitators Facilitators are those individuals and/or collectives within this group that function as support, either direct or indirect, for remote nurses in delivering mental healthcare, other than those in management and administration. In this study, there was only one identified group of facilitators, the RFDS. The vision of the RFDS was originally Reverend John Flynn’s, who initially worked in remote Australia establishing hostels and bush hospitals for pastoralists, miners, road workers, railway men and other settlers. In 1928, his dream became a reality when the Australian Inland Mission Aerial Medical Service in Cloncurry, Queensland (later to be renamed the RFDS) took its first air flight to deliver remote healthcare. Since then, the RFDS has grown to become the national remote (and rural) provider of healthcare and health retrievals by air. The RFDS provides a number of healthcare