General News
12 December, 2022
Community campaign pays off as MATS opens
Hundreds of residents turned out to the Maryborough Aerodrome on Friday where after four years of community campaigning, the Maryborough Aeromedical Transfer Station (MATS) was officially opened. The long-awaited MATS facility began its life as...
Hundreds of residents turned out to the Maryborough Aerodrome on Friday where after four years of community campaigning, the Maryborough Aeromedical Transfer Station (MATS) was officially opened.
The long-awaited MATS facility began its life as a community-led vision to provide safe and comfortable working conditions, as well as privacy, for paramedics preparing patients for air ambulance.
The facility, which was officially opened on Friday afternoon at the Maryborough Aerodrome, is entirely community owned with Maryborough and district residents raising over $130,000 towards its construction and local trades and businesses pledging support to make the dream a reality.
A packed crowd attended the opening ceremony last week, where members of the MATS steering committee and representatives from the Freemasons Foundation Victoria, Rotary Club of Maryborough, Maryborough Lions Club, Ambulance Victoria, including the organisation’s former CEO Tony Walker, and other dignitaries spoke to the project and its importance for the community.
Speaking on the day, the steering committee’s Anthony Ohlsen said the facility and project was devised to support the local community.
“Previously if someone needed to be taken to hospital by air ambulance, the helicopter would land at Princes Park and people would go along and watch,” he said.
“We realised the potential of a facility, which we now have, to give privacy for people in need of transport but also give paramedics better working conditions.”
Land at the aerodrome was identified by the steering committee and Central Goldfields Shire Council in September 2018 and with fundraising events throughout 2019, where major sponsors came on board, individuals and local trades and businesses made in-kind donations, by May 2020 the project’s $120,000 fundraising goal had been surpassed.
The project was headed by community stalwart and MATS steering committee chair Dianne Mullins, who sadly passed away earlier this year and in a fitting tribute on Friday, the facility was dedicated in her honour.
Dianne’s husband Dan described her efforts to get the project off the ground as relentless.
“Dianne spent many long days, day in, day out, week in, week out, year in, year out for the better health outcomes of our paramedics and their patients — she was on a mission and it had to happen,” he said.
“As Dianne said at our centenary celebrations (for Maryborough’s Ambulance Auxiliary), we bought a new ambulance and now 100 years later a shed to put it in.
“Unfortunately Dianne is not with us today and all I can say is a very big thank you to Di for delivering a shed Maryborough’s community can be proud of.”
Ambulance Victoria Maryborough team manager Mark Passalick said the opening of the facility was a historic day for all of the community who helped make the transfer station a reality.
“This project is a testament and lasting legacy to the remarkable community spirit of Maryborough and to the late Dianne Mullins, chairperson of the MATS committee,” he said.
“Countless hours of fundraising and planning have delivered a facility that will make a real difference to the Maryborough and district community to improve the health outcomes and the lives of patients for generations to come.
“Having raised every cent through tireless work and commitment to their vision, the community can be truly proud of their extraordinary achievement together.
“It is a fitting tribute for the facility to be dedicated in honour of Di, who united the whole community and guided the project from its initial inception to where we are today.”
Speaking to the benefits of the new facility, Ambulance Victoria Loddon Mallee regional director Trevor Weston said the transfer station was an investment in the community’s health that locals should be proud of.
“At Ambulance Victoria we’re very much about patient care,outcomes and continual improvement,” he said.
“It’s not all about new medications and new medical techniques, it’s also about facilities like the MATS.
“This means we’re not trying to perform lifesaving critical interventions during howling wind or 45 degree heat.
“This is an incredible contribution to the future patients of Maryborough.”