By constant care: health support for RAN operations 1900-1976[1]
By Neil Westphalen*
The RAN’s military, diplomatic and policing roles have furthered Australia’s world-wide national interests in peace and war since 1911. These roles explain why, rather than having treatment services as an end unto itself, it needs health services that are actively focused on getting its ships to sea and keeping them there. Furthermore, the RAN routinely performs these three roles throughout a spectrum of conflict between peace and war. This explains why, unlike Army and RAAF (for which conflict has until recently been a binary ‘on/off’ switch), it needs the same health services throughout this continuum.
