The Royal Flying Doctor Service plans to start a second service at its Broken Hill Base next month.
The need for an additional aeromedical service and more pilots to service the region was highlighted at December hearings for the inquest into the 2017 death of Broken Hill teenager Alex Braes.
RFDS south-eastern section's general manager of operations and service delivery, Claudio Grasso, said they were hoping to start up the new service by March 7 or 10 subject to some further fine-tuning.
He said it would combine with the city's existing 24/7 plane.
"The way we will structure the service will be to cover the peak periods around the evening so that we're better equipped to be more responsive to the needs of patient transfers and attendant to any evacuation requirements as well."
More pilots and flight nurses
Mr Grasso said alongside the new aeromedical service they were also recruiting new pilots to join the seven already based in the city.
"Not only do we service the aeromedical requirements but we also provide clinic services across far western New South Wales — some of those regional communities out at Hungerford, Innamincka, Wilcannia."
Mr Grasso said they were also going to increase the number of flight nurses in Broken Hill from six to eight.
"We have our doctors onsite and they're readily available to help support patients that are in need of critical care," he said.
'It made sense'
The Far West Local Health District welcomed the development and said they had been discussing a second aeromedical service for some time.
The health district's chief executive, Umit Agis, said it had been a process between the district, RFDS, New South Wales Ambulance, and the health ministry to get approval.
He said he was pleased to see the service would be starting up soon.
"That's largely to do with sometimes the receiving hospital not having enough beds, but we've also developed some systems around that as well so that won't be as big an issue.
"The other part of it was not enough pilot hours. That's where we had the discussions around actually producing that overnight shift."
Mr Agis said the right decision had been made.
"It was a process certainly. I don't think it was that difficult in the end," he said.
