Back in 1912, the Reverend John Flynn became acutely aware of the needs of people living in outback Australia. The community facilities that we now take for granted in our cities – ie, good roads, rapid transport, good medical services, communications (including telephones), entertainment and supermarkets, etc – simply did not exist in the outback back then (and often still don’t today).

Admittedly, many of these facilities were rudimentary – and in some cases non-existent – in city areas in 1912. However, the people of the outback had none of these conveniences. How would we like to live in a world like that?

In reality, the infrastructure in outback Australia is quite poor and, given the sparse population, will remain that way.

Flynn, through the Australian Inland Mission (AIM), an arm of the Presbyterian Church in Australia, began looking at ways to address the plight of people in isolated outback areas. In particular, he saw that people needed medical facilities (hospitals, doctors and nurses), the means to obtain speedy access to these facilities, and a means of calling promptly for this assistance.

John Flynn (nearest to camera) and George Towns setting off from Adelaide on their 1925 trip to test radio communications equipment in outback central Australia.

The few medical centres that did exist at that time were thinly spread throughout remote areas. A single nurse (or perhaps two) and – if they were lucky – a doctor within a few hundred miles were about the best that people in the outback could expect nearly a century ago.