CAPE York has always been a difficult place for services to reach.
Even in the early 1990s its 144,000 square kilometres was a daunting prospect for authorities grappling with health service delivery.
The closest hospital with paediatric support for the region's youthful population is at least 800km away and so medico Clive Hadfield decided to tackle it from the air.
The GP and former director of medicine at the Cairns Base Hospital put his pilot's licence to work in 1990, beginning fly-in medical clinics to eight remote indigenous communities in a region extending west to the Gulf of Carpentaria and north to Torres Strait.
News that he was flying himself around the Cape got round the northern medical fraternity and in 1994 he was joined by paediatrician Dr Richard Heazlewood and occupational therapist Patsy Bjerregaard. The Cape York Paediatric Outreach Program had begun.
Since then it's been described by peers as the stuff of legends and its instigators as inspirational.
The trio were on hand at the Rural Doctors Association of Queensland conference in Cairns last month to share their stories of the pioneering service.
"I came to Cairns in 1973 and what we were seeing horrified us," Richard said.
"There was meningitis, gastro, AIDS - it was before the days of the RFDS. There were just hundreds of kids and I couldn't achieve much, so I elected to join Clive and kick off the outreach."
It was a similar story for Patsy, who was running a child development unit in Cairns that was looking after all the children up to the age of five with developmental issues.
"There were some coming in from the Cape but not in the numbers we knew were out there, with fetal alcohol syndrome and so on," she said. "There was a real need."
Although Queensland Health was empathetic and gave the nod to the service's establishment, it was up to the doctors to work out the logistics.
This included taking along their own food and sleeping on floors at local nursing clinics.
They understood the importance of developing a rapport with community elders, firstly to be trusted and then to ensure programs were followed.
Patsy recounted the many cups of tea she had with elder women, gaining their backing, especially when it came to domestic violence issues.
It led on to community advocacy programs and the establishment of a mothers and babies clinic at Kowanyama.
Visual aids were a huge part of driving home the message of the dangers of alcohol and smoking to pregnant women and so Patsy had a number of educational dolls made.
One of them had a model foetus in a flask of water, which began turning brown when a cigarette was attached.
Queensland Health records in local clinics were all paper-based but the outreach service pioneered electronic summaries, an initiative that "probably saved a few lives", according to Kowanyama GP Dr Lara Weiland. She told the RDAQ audience that the moral support offered by the doctors flying in was a huge boost for doctors dumped in communities for long periods on their own.
"The continuity and reliability was important to us." Patsy agreed that the program involved much more than seeing patients.
Looking ahead, Chris said it was vital that future programs managed the huge number of services and money being thrown at indigenous health in the Cape so that it was used effectively.
"Noel Pearson counted something like 90 services at Arukun," Richard said. "I think there will be a gradual evolution to a community-controlled model. There will be some tears getting there but it's the only model."
Incoming RDAQ president Dr Tash Coventry thanked the trio for their creativity. "You have left an incredibly large footprint in rural and regional Queensland," she said.
