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A critical medical mission to fly eight pediatric specialists into remote Broken Hill today has highlighted a worsening crisis for regional healthcare, as skyrocketing fuel costs force a prominent children’s charity to ration its flights.
Children’s charity Little Wings deployed two aircraft to the isolated town on Monday morning, transporting a team of specialists from Royal Far West for a five-day clinic.
The team, including paediatricians, speech pathologists, and occupational therapists, aims to provide rigorous “tier 4” developmental assessments for between 35 and 40 local children.
Tier 4 assessments represent the highest level of developmental evaluation in NSW, requiring a multidisciplinary team of specialists to diagnose complex neurological and behavioural issues that a single local doctor cannot treat alone.
For some of these families, the clinic represents the end of a gruelling two-year wait for an assessment.
However, the major logistic feat comes amid a quiet emergency for the service provider.
Little Wings chief executive Clare Pearson revealed that soaring aviation fuel prices have already forced the charity to scale back its operations significantly.
“Avgas is up 60 per cent and there’s been no subsidy or support from the government, state or federal,” Ms Pearson told NewsWire.
“Typically this time of year we’re doing between 70 and 75 missions per week, but we’re down to around 50. So we have seen a decline for sure.”
The cuts mean the charity must now make impossible choices.
“We do try to preserve the clinics if we can, because they see so many children when they go out as opposed to individual families. But at the end of the day, whose child is more important?” Ms Pearson said.
The mission is especially critical for Broken Hill, where families are still recovering from the compounding trauma of the October 2024 supercell storm.
The severe weather event wiped out seven transmission towers, plunging more than 10,000 properties into prolonged, rolling blackouts for two weeks and crippling essential local services.
Ms Pearson said the trauma of that crisis has eroded the resilience of local families already struggling with chronic illness.
“As soon as one of those plates drops and there’s something major that happens, be it the electricity, be it a child with a chronic illness, families are just struggling. They cannot continue,” she said.
“Of course mental health goes down.”
The developmental clinics are vital for unlocking National Disability Insurance Scheme funding and early intervention tools during the crucial first 2000 days of a child’s brain development.
Missing this window, Ms Pearson warned, leads to long-term community consequences, including truancy, unemployment, and family breakdown.
Despite being 90 per cent volunteer-led, with 100 per cent of its pilots and drivers donating their time, Little Wings is struggling to match the rising demand with community fundraising alone.
The charity has requested $600,000 from the NSW government to secure 400 missions, but is still waiting for stability.
NewsWire contacted NSW Minister for Health Ryan Park’s office regarding the funding crisis and the significant delays for remote care, but a spokesperson failed to give a definitive answer on whether financial relief was coming.
“Many organisations request funding from NSW Health,” the spokesperson said.
“Work will continue with this organisation on its funding needs.”
When Ms Pearson was asked about the future of regional pediatric healthcare without intervention, her assessment was stark.
“It looks grim is the answer,” she said.
“If they say no, they’re not saying no to me, they’re saying no to thousands of families that desperately need supports that currently are not available.”
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