For the past 35 years she has been flying to the remotest people in Kenya, to tend to, and evacuate the sick. Dr Spoerry takes to the air in her ricketty 20 year old plane equipped with 2 folding chairs and a big box of drugs in search of the shade of a tree. As Mama Daktari sets up her benevolent bush clinics for the Masai, Bettina Vadera in contrast treats only the wealthy in a helicopter crowded with equipment. With Africa’s ex-pat community willing to pay through the nose for their care, there’s great money to be made from subscriptions for this flying doctor service. Set against the Kenyan Rift Valley, this film takes an interesting look at the determination of one women to provide treatment for the most common diseases. Mama Daktari may have the unnerving habit of falling asleep at the plane’s controls but no one has the courage to suggest this doctor should stop flying.

Produced by ABC Australia