Sandpiper Australia's vision is to close the trauma gap in rural and remote Australia via a National Rural Responder Network comprised of Sandpiper Clinician's, each equipped with a Sandpiper Bag to positively benefit their community.
How can we make this vision a reality?
Australia is fortunate to have excellent state-based ambulance services, supported by transport and retrieval services.
However, Australia is a vast continent. With increasing rurality, there is often a significant delay in transporting patients to definitive care. Moreover, emergency responders in rural areas are limited in number and in scope of practice. As a result, rural trauma victims may face significant delay in receiving effective pain relief or advanced medical interventions, whereas the same patient in a metropolitan area would likely receive prompt care.
Rural doctors, most especially Rural Generalists have skills not just in primary care but also in emergency medicine and in-patient hospital care. Some may have advanced skills in anaesthesia, obstetric or surgery. Rural Generalists are trained to deliver emergency care via their local health services but may also be called upon to respond in the prehospital environment. Outside of South Australia (see Current Rural Responder Networks) pre-hospital responses tend to be ad hoc, lacking consistency in tasking criteria, equipment, training and over-riding clinical governance.
Sandpiper Australia knows that the existing skills of rural clinicians can be contextualised to the challenging prehospital environment with appropriate task-training reinforced by simulation.
Through enabling rural clinicians to undergo training in pre-hospital care, and equipping them with Sandpiper Bags, we can support rural clinicians to become Sandpiper Clinicians.
By supporting Sandpiper Australia, you’re supporting our vision of equipping rural clinicians to attend pre-hospital situations and improve the health outcomes of rural and remote communities.