Dental hospital in line for demolition
There will also be a “severe difficulty” in recruiting hospital and university staff to a building unable to provide 21st century facilities, according to Ros Hamburger, Birmingham’s consultant in dental public health.
Ms Hamburger said: “I am pleased to say that although there has been a quiet patch where nothing has happened, there is now a big push from the health authority to get a move on and get a new building started.
“There have been discussions on whether it should go out to tender as the NHS has changed while we have been considering this.
“We have been asked to set up a group which will specify needs for the dental school and it is likely that we will get a building closer to Birmingham University but it needs to also have an outreach centre in the city centre.”
South Birmingham PCT runs the hospital, which provides a limited ‘walk-in’ service for patients with urgent dental problems, training for dental students and research labs, seeing more than 100,000 people every year.
PCT bosses plan to have 160 dental chairs in the new building with an additional six chairs in each of two satellite centres in the city centre and Oldbury, to support an annual intake of 75 undergraduate dental students.
Original plans for a flagship dental hospital school failed to get off the ground in 2004 due to funding problems when Birmingham did not get enough student applications.
The school has been dogged by structural problems over the years including an outbreak of the Legionnaire’s bug and substantial amounts of asbestos, the majority of which has now been removed although small deposits remain in the building contained in airtight seals.
