If you need urgent medical help, who do you call?  In Western Australia's rural and remote areas, you call the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

The RFDS has been servicing the Australian community for more than 80 years, and in emergency medical situations provides timely, safe  aero-medical transfer from Western Australia's regions to hospitals in Perth.

In 2008, Rio Tinto joined forces with the RFDS in Western Australia in an $11.4 million partnership to introduce Australia's first emergency medical jet service. The Rio Tinto Life Flight jet will cut flight times by half from some of our most distant communities in Western Australia, providing a quicker and more flexible health service to people living a long way from specialist medical care.

The Rio Tinto Life Flight jet will be launched in 2009 to meet the ever-increasing demand for health services in the state's north, particularly the Kimberley - the most distant region from Perth, and the largest regional source of RFDS patients state-wide.

RFDS chief executive Tim Shackleton said the partnership was a ground-breaking move for emergency aero-medical services.

"It is a great leap forward for the RFDS, and a dream come true for people in the bush," Mr Shackleton said. "It will help to overcome the tyranny of distance in remote and regional areas."

Over 1000 patients are transferred from the Pilbara and Kimberley regions to Perth every year and demand for RFDS  assistance increased more than 35 per cent between 2003 and 2008.