Background and History of Cooloola Coast Medical Transport Inc. [CCMT]

Cooloola Coast Medical Transport was formed in October 2003 when a small group of community minded residents of Tin Can Bay and Cooloola Cove realised the need to assist the residents of the Cooloola Coast, paying particular attention to the frail, aged and disabled. Due to the isolation of the area from major hospitals and specialists and because these patients were outside the guidelines in place for the Queensland Ambulance Service, this small group founded Cooloola Coast Medical Transport (CCMT). Public transport is still to this day an issue for residents travelling to out of town destinations.

With an amount of only $18.45 the residents (all volunteers) commenced their operations from a small office at the Tin Can Bay Resource & Referral Centre and used their own private vehicles to assist those in need. As time went by, other members of the community began to volunteer their services. A small admirative fee was charged to cover the cost of petrol etc., and when the amount of $50.00 was attained, the first bank account was opened in the name of Cooloola Coast Medical Transport.

As the organisation grew, the group of volunteers purchased a second-hand vehicle to use for transporting people. They also moved into other premises for a minimal monthly rental. It became clearly obvious to the residents of the area that this service was vital to assist it’s residents including the aged, frail, needy and disabled with transport to local and out of town doctors and hospitals.

We became incorporated in 2011, we are a not-for-profit community organization run solely by volunteers and hold Deductible Gift Recipient status.

The organisation has since grown dramatically. We even out grew our rented office and garage facilities at Scullett Drive. It was a real squeeze to house the six vehicles that were in our fleet at that time. Providing secure office facilities with vehicle parking was a problem.

We were able to fix our problem when in 2014 in a busy year we were able to lease from the Queensland State Government the old Tin Can Bay Fire & SES base for 30 years at an excellent low charge. The Federal Government then helped with a generous $120,000 Infrastructure grant that enabled us to renovate and modify the buildings to suit our needs along with some hard-earned funds of our own. Our local Gympie Regional Council where very helpful as well with all the building permits and other requirements to make this project a reality. We now have an excellent base to call our own. We moved into our new office at 25 Bream Street Tin Can Bay over the Christmas - New Year break, opening at the new site on the 12 January 2015.

A further building project in 2017/18 was another big event for CCMT, that has seen us build an extension to our garage facilities that also includes a multi-purpose meeting room. We now have room for eight cars, so we will be set for the future expansion of our fleet.

Fleet expansion has already begun with the purchase in February 2018 of a seventh car for the fleet. The building extensions and new car have been partly funded by various grants as well as CCMT funds.

We now have three Toyota Corolla Hybrid cars since March 2020 in the fleet as well as two and soon to be three Toyota Yaris Cross Hybrid cars since August 2022 and will have one remaining Mitsubishi ASX cars since March 2019. All our hybrid cars have been purchased and serviced by Madill's in Gympie.

Gympie Medical Transport Inc. has now been operating since February 2021. We wish them well with their new venture.

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