An announcement by The Greens that it wants the Labor Government to set up 1,000 ‘super clinics’ staffed by dentists, doctors and other health practitioners if it wants Greens’ support in the event of a hung parliament, has the Australian Dental Association (ADA) questioning how practical the plan is.
With each proposed facility to be staffed by 25 healthcare workers, The Greens say the clinics would offer free healthcare and need to attract around one-in-10 dentists currently practicing elsewhere.
“While the ADA thinks the idea has merit in principle, as ever the devil is in the detail including actually securing the $54 billion over a decade to fund this,” said ADA President, Dr Scott Davis (pictured).
“There are questions around budgetary prioritisation because Labor has signalled fairly consistently that it won’t be increasing federal funding for dental treatment any time soon.
“To staff the proposed clinics with existing dentists would require attracting them away from existing clinics, or training a very significant number of new dentists, which takes time and is subject to constraints. So it might be a challenge to make strong headway on this within the term of the next government.
“While the plan has merit, it needs more careful consideration around how the super clinics would be staffed and funded, and the ADA is happy to sit down with political parties to help them work through practical, publicly funded dental policy options,” he said.
