The University of Queensland's new Oral Health Centre will treat about 17,000 dental and cancer patients each year and help alleviate a national dentist shortage.
UQ hailed the $104 million announced tonight in the Federal Budget, which will build Australia's largest and most advanced specialist oral health service, with a world's-best-practice centre for education, training and research.
The centre, known as the OHC, will be located at UQ's Herston Campus next to the Royal Brisbane & Women's Hospital, and will bring together UQ's School of Dentistry and parts of Queensland Health's Oral Health Services.
UQ Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Greenfield welcomed the announcement as the start of a new era in dental care and education for Queensland.
"The OHC will substantially expand and improve oral health facilities and services for patients, particularly cancer patients and others with complex dental care needs," he said.
"It will treat approximately 17,000 people per year - 73 per cent more than are treated at UQ's current site in the old Brisbane Dental Hospital on Turbot Street in the CBD.
"Patients will also benefit from OHC research, which will target better treatment outcomes and prevention."
The project will support up to 700 jobs in the construction, property and business and manufacturing industries between now and its scheduled 2012 completion date. The finished OHC will have up to 160 full-time equivalent staff, about half of them in new or reconfigured positions.
The Head of UQ's School of Dentistry, Professor Laurie Walsh, said the School would move from the 70-year-old Brisbane Dental Hospital Building and the four decade old adjacent teaching facilities.
"The new facility will enable the training of 20 more dentists, and 15 more oral health therapists each year as well as expansion of programs which produce dental specialists. Students in all these programs will treat members of the public as patients in the Oral Health Centre, under close supervision.
"We will be able to provide an expanded range of clinical treatments in restorative dentistry, children's dentistry, orthodontics, oral radiology, oral medicine, periodontics, endodontics, special needs dentistry and other specialist areas," Professor Walsh said.
"The integration of clinical services in a tertiary referral centre with our expanding dental research groups will accelerate the development of new methods for diagnosis, prevention and treatment of dental diseases. This new facility will be the ideal place to explore new therapies and evaluate them in clinical practice settings."
Other features of the OHC will include:
- Interdisciplinary clinics for care of oncology, medically complex and special needs patients, which will involve a range of health professionals and students
- Telemedicine, oral radiology and oral medicine services to support dentists in regional Queensland and nationally
- Teaching facilities including clinical simulation areas, teaching laboratories and lecture rooms
- Continuing professional education for the oral health workforce
- Australia's largest dental library.
Professor Greenfield said UQ's planning for a new School of Dentistry dated back 20 years.
"I thank the Australian and Queensland governments for supporting the project," he said.
"I congratulate the Faculty of Health Sciences Executive Dean, Professor Peter Brooks and his team - including the School of Dentistry leadership team who won the support by articulating the vital importance of this project to the future of health care."
Media contacts: Marlene McKendry (for Laurie Walsh) 0401 99 6847; Fiona Kennedy (for Paul Greenfield) 07 3365 1384 or 0413 380 012.
