Dr Thanuka Wijegunaratne had barely started his new hospital job when he received a phone call that would leave him with a $190,000 medical retrieval bill and a life-changing experience. 

The junior doctor, based in Proserpine Hospital in north Queensland, received news in late January that his dad had been in a motorcycle accident in Sri Lanka and had a serious cervical spinal injury.

By early February, he and his mother had arrived in Sri Lanka, where from quarantine, Dr Wijegunaratne organised his father’s medical repatriation home to Brisbane.

Not only did he need to arrange a loan to cover the costs but at the last moment, the freshly graduated intern had to act as his dad’s doctor during the flight to Australia.