Parliamentary Committee highlights dental workforce shortages

According to the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee of the Victorian Parliament:

"No improvement has been achieved in reducing the staff vacancy rates in community dental clinics located in rural Victoria. Rural areas experienced a vacancy rate of 31 per cent at March 2005, the rate for March 2006 was 32 per cent. The department has employed a number of strategies to address this issue." (p.23)

Elsewhere in the report the difference between metropolitan and rural vacancy rates was highlighted:

"At March 2006, metropolitan community dental services had a vacancy rate of 7 per cent, while rural services had a vacancy rate of 32 per cent." (p.222)

These comments appear in the committee's Report on the 2006-07 Budget Estimates (please note that this link will take you to a download screen, where you can decide whether to download the pdf version of this file, which is almost 4Mb). This report also notes that the funding target for dental services in 2006-07 is $129.8m.

Quoting Health Minister Bronwyn Pike's advice about current Government action to improve the rural dental workforce problem, the report states:
"The Minister also indicated that the Victorian Government is supporting rural workforce development through rural student clinical placements, rural bonded scholarships and support for the establishment in 2006 of a Bachelor of Oral Health Science degree at La Trobe University, Bendigo. The first La Trobe University, Bendigo Bachelor of Oral Health Science students will graduate in 2008, boosting numbers of dental therapy and hygiene professionals provided through University of Melbourne graduations."

If you would like to urge the Minister to take more action to improve this situation, visit the Victorian Oral Health Alliance website.