International Athletes to get Free Dental Care at the Olympics
International athletes will be entitled to free dental care during the Olympic Games, it has been confirmed.
Athletes will be invited to attend a new £23 million polyclinic, which has been built in the Olympic Park, to receive dental and eye care free of charge. The 24-hour clinic is to receive funding from the NHS and the government as part of the Olympic budget. A sum of £17 million has come from the NHS budget, while a total of £6 million has been taken from the Olympic Games budget.
Medical care will be available only to those who require treatment. Athletes who are unable to get treatment in their own country will be treated at the clinic, according to Wendy Turner, one of the team of six dentists that will be based at the clinic. Some of the athletes will have been unable to get dental treatment at home and this is a chance for them to get the help they need.
In addition to a range of dental services, the eye care department will also provide free eye tests and glasses, where necessary and the clinic is expecting to carry out around 120 eye tests per day.
Debbie Jevans, director of sport at the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games, said that even a very minor ailment can affect the performance levels of elite athletes and therefore it is important that participants have access to health services.
Once the Games have finished the clinic will re-open as an NHS service for local residents, however, a lot of the medical and dental equipment used during the Games will be sold after the sporting events have finished.
Lord Coe said that the committee had worked hard to ensure that athletes have 24 hour access to a range of services to ensure that they are in peak condition when they perform.
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What on earth are we doing, why are olympic competitors from other countries entitled to free dental and eye care? Why are the NHS providing 17 million pounds to provide this when we are enduring cuts in the NHS for British people.
Even when the facility is turned over fro public use after the olympics, most of the ‘state of the art’ equipment will have been sold off and therefore not available to the general public.
Who came up with this idea, who sanctioned it and more to the point who asked the public’s permission to take all that money away from our NHS?
Is it any wonder we don’t have any money, we are so eager to be the good guys and give everything away. Enough is enough!