The Olympic Complex Will Include A Free Dental, Eye Clinic For Athletes

Overseas athletes will be able to get free dental work and eye care at a specially constructed £23M ($36M) Polyclinic in the Olympic Park, according to Tom Peck of the London INDEPENDENT. The 24-hour health centre, "which expects to treat 200 athletes a day," has received £17M ($27M) from the National Health Service, plus £6B ($9B) of the £9.3B ($14.6B) Olympics budget. Organisers have stressed athletes will receive only "immediate and necessary" treatment from medics at the Polyclinic, but that the dental team "expect to treat a wider range of conditions." After the Games, the main Polyclinic site in Stratford will be reopened as an NHS facility for local residents, though "much of the state-of-the-art equipment will have been sold." The hospital will be staffed by 10 LOCOG medical staff, as well as 500 volunteers, including accident-and-emergency doctors and nurses, many of whom have taken unpaid leave to man the clinic during the Games. Around 80 specialist doctors will be on call throughout the Games (INDEPENDENT, 6/19).