New public dental clinic opens for business

11/10/06
A new public dental clinic in Joondalup will ensure thousands of people in the northern suburbs have their teeth attended to sooner.
Health Minister Jim McGinty said the new $2.2million clinic would cut the time pensioners and health care cardholders waited for treatment in the north metropolitan area.
"The 10-chair clinic will treat 2,000 people in its first year of operation, with the figure increasing to 5,500 people each year by mid 2008," Mr McGinty said.
The centre was part of the State Government's program of decentralising public dental services to ensure people had access to dental care close to where they lived.
The clinic would provide a local public service for the 21,000 people on low incomes from Joondalup and surrounding areas.
More than 570 patients had already been transferred to the clinic from the Warwick centre.
"The Government's commitment to dental health has seen the average waiting time for non-urgent treatment plummet from 17.5 months in 2004 to just eight months," the Minister said.
"Western Australia now has the shortest waiting time of any State in Australia - with people waiting an average of 28 months in South Australia, 27.7 months in Queensland, 23.5 months in Victoria, and up to three years for care in New South Wales.
"Although we are leading the nation in public dental care, we will continue to work to cut waiting times even further, so dental patients get their treatment sooner rather than later."
Since 2001, four other new clinics had been established in Morley, Cockburn, Halls Creek and Newman, with a temporary clinic being opened in Broome and centres in Warwick, Boulder and Derby being upgraded.
Mr McGinty said another new dental clinic was being built in Kununurra, work was underway to re-build and upgrade a clinic in Fitzroy Crossing, and planning had begun for new centres in Broome and Bunbury.
The Minister said the State's dental list blew out when the Howard Government ceased the Commonwealth Dental Health Program in 1996.
Waiting times for public dental treatment in WA steadily increased to a high of 25,000 patients with an average waiting time of 17.5 months for treatment in 2004.
With the new clinics and increased incentives for private dentists to take on public patients, there are now less than 13,000 people waiting for treatment.
Minister's office - 9422 3000