An eight-year-old boy with horrific head injuries was forced to wait two days for the Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) to transfer him to Perth.
In 2025-26, the RFDS WA, which is the only option for urgent medical transfers from outside of Perth, made 17,684 flights and transported 10,498 patients.
Rachel McKay told the ABC her son’s scalp was torn open exposing his skull afer a motorbike crash about 3,000 kilometres north of Perth.
The crash occurred in Warmun on Sunday, June 7, causing the top of the boy’s head to be “de-gloved”.
While the boy was rushed to the local clinic, run by WA Country Health, he was told she would have to go to Perth for proper treatment.
However, after waiting three hours, clinic staff told the boy and his family that the (RFDS) transfer was not coming.
“We were told a doctor plane wasn’t going to come because it was getting late and the airstrip didn’t have any lights,” Ms McKay told the ABC.
After being released from the clinic, the boy’s conditioned worsened.
The family drove to Halls Creek Hospital where staff at the Warmun clinic said a flight “would be waiting to take us to Perth”.
But yet again they were told the flight would not happen and the boy and his family stayed the night at the hospital.
Ms McKay said her son was highly distressed and unable to see through swollen eyes, until their luck changed.
On June 9, the RFDS transfer was secured and the family landed in Perth at 11pm, close to 48 hours after the accident.
The ABC sad the boy was recovering well two months later, but Ms McKay was left concerned about the lack of transport for her severely injured son.
“Why does it take two days for an eight-year-old with a serious head injury to be picked up?” she said.
“We’re scared that if something serious happens we’re not going to be seen to or cared for appropriately.”
RFDS WA said in March it responded to the “largest ever number of patient retrievals in 2025”, amounting to an average of 29 calls for assistance per day, equalling about 10,578 a year.
WA Country Health Service told the ABC that its records “differed” to Ms McKay’s account of her son’s situation but recognised it as a “stressful situation”.
“We apologise we did not meet expectations on this occasion,” the spokesperson said.
“In the case of this patient they were tasked for retrieval in line with their clinical presentation, however, did face a short delay due to a more clinically urgent retrieval as well as adverse weather conditions.”
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