April 1, 2011
Public dental waiting lists have been slashed from five years to six months in the Latrobe Valley under a focussed plan by Latrobe Community Health Service in coordination with other dental services across the region.
The Nationals Member for Gippsland Darren Chester said Latrobe Community Health had secured the services of 16 dentists and dental therapists at its centre in Buckley Street Morwell, working in brand new state-of-the-art facilities.
“It is a credit to the board of Latrobe Community Health and all of the staff, that they have been able to work so successfully to improve access to health services for Latrobe Valley residents,” Mr Chester said.
Dental waiting times were reported by the Department of Human Services in June 2006 at more than 64 months in Latrobe and Baw Baw regions.
Mr Chester said Latrobe Community Health had advised him this week that figure had been reduced to around six months.
“By investing in new facilities for practising and training dentists, Latrobe Community Health is confident access will continue to improve for Latrobe Valley residents,” Mr Chester said.
“Likewise the new building includes consulting rooms for other professionals to practise and train in Morwell and I look forward to working with the health centre in anyway I can to recruit more health professionals to the region.”
State Member for Morwell Russell Northe said it was vital local families had ready access to dentists.
“I’m pleased to see such a vast improvement in dental waiting lists for the Latrobe Valley,” Mr Northe said.
“Full credit must go to Latrobe Community Health Service and its team for improving the performance so markedly in a reasonably short period of time.”
Mr Chester last week called on the Federal Government to provide a focused Regional Health Minister in Cabinet to work with health services in regional areas and provide more support to regional doctors.
“The Nationals believe that regional health deserves a higher profile in the overall health policy of government,” Mr Chester said.
“There needs to be an overhaul of the regional incentive programs to attract and retain health professionals in rural and regional communities and a better targeted system of payments which rewards doctors and other health professionals who move to some of the more difficult to service areas and then choose to stay there.
“We also need to make sure that we are providing opportunities for students from regional communities to actually achieve the marks to go on to study medicine or other health professions.
“It has been proven over many studies that students who have some origins in a regional community are more likely to come back and practise in those communities in the future and we must do more to support students from country areas who want to pursue meaningful careers in medicine as others of skills shortages.”