Seacorp Coastal Shipping answers call of the Outback

Seacorp Coastal Shipping answered a call of the outback in July when it shipped a special cargo to the Kimberley community of Kununurra.

Seacorp came to the aid of the St John Ambulance sub-centre in Kununurra when it offered to ship an ambulance from Fremantle up to the north west port of Wyndham.

Delivery of the ambulance ensures a vital second vehicle for the St John Ambulance sub-centre which serves a vast area covering 12,189 square kilometres in Western Australia’s remote north.

Volunteers and staff from the centre regularly find themselves travelling hundreds of kilometres to assist in station accidents, road crashes, helicopter crashes and other medical emergencies.

The dedicated community workers and medics provide essential back up to other medical services in the region, such as the hospital and air based medical services.

The Kununurra sub centre’s acting chairman Mrs Joanna Campbell said that without the aid of Seacorp, the non-profit organisation would have been forced to spend thousands of dollars to transport the ambulance from Perth to Kununura.

“We assessed the cost of trucking it up and then explored the idea of trying to save money by having two people drive it up for us,” Mrs Campbell said.

“However, this would have cost at least $2,000 per person on accommodation expenses".

“By the time we factored in fuel costs we would have spent over $6,000".

“I phoned Seacorp for a quote and then received an email the following day saying they were willing to transport the ambulance for free.”

Mrs Campbell said up until the sea delivery of the second ambulance in July, the vast Kununurra community was served with just one ambulance.

“We really needed a second ambulance because there are times when we need to take the other one off-line for maintenance,” Mrs Campbell said.

"The area we cover has some 926 kilometres of unsealed roads and 400 km of non-gazetted roads".

“Many of our calls come from isolated communities and we often get call outs to accidents that occur in the Northern Territory on the highway or on gravel tracks".

“Needless to say, there’s plenty of opportunities for an ambulance to get knocked around and be forced out of commission for a few days.”

Seacorp’s Coastal Shipping Service sails between Fremantle, Dampier, Port Hedland, Broome. Wyndham and Darwin on a 16-17 day cycle.

Seacorp managing director Craig Thompson said the shipping service continued a long-held tradition to ensure people in remote communities had access to competitive transport.

The service, which was partly underwritten by the Western Australian Government, offered the cheapest transport option for individuals and businesses in the region.

In wet seasons, when roads were cut off to trucks, shipping provided a critical alternative form of transport.