Rhys Powell is the senior manager for Corporate and Community Engagement at Uniting WA and on 30th September he was our club’s guest speaker.
His main focus was informing us about the need for a mobile dental van in the metropolitan area but broadly speaking, this need has come from more and more people requiring assistance from Uniting WA. In this past year alone, Uniting WA has seen a 600 per cent increase in their financial counselling services.
Uniting WA assist vulnerable people who include those with a disability, the unemployed, or who are homeless in a variety of ways. Their drop in centre helps 300-400 people in crisis every week.
There are more people falling under the poverty line than ever before and Uniting Way is seeing more people cannot afford to visit the dentist regularly. Financially stressed people are three times more likely to suffer from dental problems. They simply can’t afford to go to the dentist. Mouth hygiene and dental care play an important part in anyone’s overall well-being.
Uniting Way sees a need and they have the means, contacts and the funding to address it. They have linked up with similar projects such as St Pats and Palmerston which have on site free dentistry services. But there are big waiting lists.
John and Jan of Kimberley Dental, Healing Smiles, International and local Rotary clubs will all play an integral part of getting this project off the ground. They have applied for funding from LotteryWest.
Uniting Way is underway with renting low cost but custom built vans from Ginos Caravans, accessing pro bono dental services, seeking free dental supplies, recruiting a dental volunteer pool and providing regular data collecting and reporting.
Estimated costs will be $120-$150,000 for the caravan; $50-$70,000 for the dental fit out and a full time dental nurse $75,000.
Uniting WA is meeting with the Head of Dentistry at St John’s, with a meeting scheduled with the WA State Coordinator of the Australian Dental Association and the Chief Operating Officer at St Pats.
Rotarian Dominic Longo is one of two dentists who set up the in house dental clinic at St Pat’s. Uniting Way will seek his advice regarding a volunteer dentist roster.
The outcomes Uniting Way is hoping to achieve are to improve oral health, engage with other service providers and increase accessibility for people needing the dental service.
Uniting Way will get the word out about the new service by liaising with other organisations in the same space of helping people. They know where the greatest needs are and hope to have dental vans operational in the northern and southern suburbs in a few months.
Thanks Rhys for a most informative talk and making us aware of a need in the community that most of us take for granted when we have our six monthly check ups at our local dentist.
Dr Ian Fairnie introduced our guest speaker Rhys Powell
