Demand for medical transport increases
As we start a new year with new challenges we look at the demand for services as a good guide for what might be ahead for CCMT.
To the end of 2019 we were racking at an annual growth rate of almost 10% in both our number of return trips (now over 1,200 per annum) and the kilometres driven by our vehicles (now over 343,000 kms per annum), and in planning for the future we have to accept that this trend is likely to continue as more and more health services get located around major population centres.
This growth gives us additional challenges in recruiting new volunteers for all areas of our service; not only additional drivers to meet demand, but additional drivers to replace those that have served for years and are retiring from CCMT.
Increased bookings for travel also places extra demands on our administration volunteers who take your calls and schedule the resources to service your needs.
Demands on funding also increase as CCMT grows, placing additional workload on our fund-raising and bingo teams and we have a need to more aggressively seek capital funding to maintain and increase our fleet of vehicles.
Plus lately, understandably, we have seen more and more money being channeled to those affected by the fires and storms around the country and we expect will make this line of funding difficult for the next year or so.
Volunteers are a local resource that we can attract, however, it is also a highly competitive area with many worthy charity organisations also wanting more and more volunteers to fill the void for local services.
All we ask is that if you are wanting to give of your time, consider CCMT. We have pretty much a 50/50 split of men and women from around the Cooloola Coast Region giving their time across all areas of CCMT so, no matter what your skills or physical capacity, if you have the desire we need you.
Give us a call on 5486 2488 or call into our offices at 25 Bream St, Tin Can Bay and have a chat with one of our volunteers and hopefully you will be convinced to book a place at our March induction training course.
Neil Goodyer – President.
