Meet Emma Blomfield

We sat down to chat with animal lover and interior designer, Emma Blomfield, who is also a dedicated RFDS Victoria ambassador.

Hi Emma! If you were you to meet someone at a dinner party, how would you introduce yourself? 

I would introduce myself as an interior designer and decorator.

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in Sydney, but I spent a little bit of time overseas in Asia when I was a child. My dad grew up in the country near Tamworth, and he always wanted to get back to the country and bought a property when I was 10 years old in the Hunter Valley. We would spend our weekends going up to the Hunter and riding dirt bikes and getting into all sorts of mischief in the country. And then, I've stayed in Sydney ever since I finished high school.

If you had to list the three things you’re most passionate about, what would they be? 

Well, obviously design, so making things more functional and practical than they are. I’m also passionate about the country and animals; I have three donkeys at the farm, and I had horses when I was kid. And I guess reading – reading or cooking.

What are your earliest memories of the Flying Doctor? 

I feel like I've known about them forever! As I mentioned, my dad's side of the family was from the country, and his two brothers – my uncles – are still living on the land, and one of them is actually quite remote in Queensland. I remember they always talked about the Flying Doctor when I was little and we'd visit them at Christmas time. They’d tell stories of other farmers in the area who had got into sticky situations, like got themselves trapped under farm machinery and that sort of stuff, and the Flying Doctors had come and helped. Plus, we always had the coordinates of the farm on the fridge at mum and dad's place, because if we ever got ourselves into trouble, we were a good hour and a half from medical help. So when we were little, dad said to us, if anyone ever gets hurt, you go to the fridge, you call 000 and you tell them these numbers, and if they have to send a helicopter or a plane, that's where they'll send it. We had that drilled into us when we were little kids!

You're clearly very familiar with the work of RFDS! Have you learnt anything surprising since you became an ambassador?

Before I started working as a brand ambassador, I thought the Flying Doctors was government funded, but then found out that they're actually not. They rely heavily on private donations and it's not actually the government keeping them in the air. What surprised me the most, though, was the assistance that RFDS Victoria gives to regional areas in terms of mental health support. That's a really vital service that's definitely needed in these areas, but is not always readily available without the help of the Flying Doctors. So when I flew down in 2019 and met with some of the pilots and nurses, it was fascinating hearing the stories from them about the mental health programs that they run and the psychologists that they send out there. I was fascinated by some of the stories that they told around people that have never sought any sort of mental health support in the past but then finally getting some relief through the support they're given by the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

What are you most looking forward to sharing with your audience about the Flying Doctor?

I think a lot of people just assume that the Royal Flying Doctor Service helps when someone has broken their leg out in the desert, but there's so much more to it, and people in the city never hear those stories. Honestly, RFDS is one of the most important services in this country. The cities are more densely populated, and we take for granted the help that we are able to access, which most people in other areas of Australia don't have access to. So by supporting a charity like RFDS, we are able to make sure that what we in the city are able to access is something that is given to everyone else as well, which is a right that we should all have.