Every year Frankie McKenzie and his parents drive around 4,000 kilometres from the country town of Lake Grace in the state's south to Perth for medical treatment.

The eight-year-old with level two spastic diplegia cerebral palsy requires regular botox injections to manage his condition, as well as a suite of specialist appointments only available in the city.

The 600-kilometre, multi-day round trip takes the McKenzies away from their business, family and home every two months.

"Three days away from home is a lot, and three days away from work when you've got two businesses to run — just the time constraints is sometimes a burden on your life," Symone McKenzie said.

Demand for support rising 

Like thousands of others across regional WA, the family relied on the state-funded Patient Assisted Travel Scheme (PATS), which offers rebates for those travelling for medical treatment.

The scheme has increased demand over the last three years with participants growing from 33,638 in 2022 to 38,122 in 2024.

But Ms McKenzie said the rising cost of everything from fuel to food means the cost to her family is also going up.

"We all know the cost of living has risen, so obviously the fuel costs, the accommodation costs [have risen]," she said.

In an attempt to offset the costs, the state government has made changes to the PATS scheme, including increasing the fuel subsidy by more than 50 per cent, a CPI increase for the accommodation subsidy, and a streamlined application process for patients.

Free flights to Perth

But rising costs have also prompted those in the not-for-profit sector to act. 

Last week regional health foundation Fly2Health launched a free aerial transport service to help people like the McKenzies.

"What we're looking to do is make it easier for people in the regions to access health services," said foundation director Adrian Munro.

Ms McKenzie said the plane that replaced three days of travel with a 45-minute flight meant Frankie could see all his specialists in one day and be back home a few hours later.

Service to support RFDS

Aeromedical services have been operating in Australia since 1928 when the Royal Flying Doctors Service flew its first service to Julia Creek in Central Queensland.

Forty-six years later the service made its first flight to the McKenzie family's hometown of Lake Grace.

However, Mr Munro said unlike the RFDS which flew 9,900 aeromedical retrievals in WA last year, Fly2Health focused on connecting patients to services outside their community.

"The RFDS transports people who may be acutely unwell. We're not transporting people who are in the midst of a medical emergency or acutely unwell," he said.

Mr Munro said the service would also provide economic benefits to the communities it operated in by keeping more people living and working in rural towns.

Services needed in towns 

Demand for aerial medical transport services has also increased over the past three years with 17,768 patients applying for air travel subsidies through the PATS program last year.

Western Australia Rural Clinical School director Andrew Kirke said the service would provide some relief to rural communities but was no substitute to having boots on the ground.

"General practice, primary health care services, need to be on the ground. That's something that can't be delivered remotely from the city. It needs to be in place where the population is," he said.

"We're probably 100 GPs short in our workforce right now and we would happily have extra people if they're around to fill that."