It could be at least 10 years before Chapel Hill and Carrboro have a public dental clinic again.
About 2,000 patients will have to travel to Hillsborough to receive dental services until the county’s finances can recover enough to reopen one.
On Sept. 21, Orange County Commissioners voted to close one of two locations low-income and uninsured residents can visit to receive low-cost dental services.
The county health department runs the Carrboro clinic, located in Carr Mill Mall. The clinic must close before its lease runs out in June 2011.
The Hillsborough location will now serve all of Orange County, said Rosemary Summers, the county’s health department director.
The closing of the Carrboro clinic is a temporary move away from the dual-service model that Orange County uses for most of its health and social services.
Typically, one facility serves the southern part of the county; the other, the northern part.
The two clinics currently share a staff, so they cannot be open at the same time. The Carrboro location operates Monday through Tuesday while the Hillsborough clinic is open Wednesday through Friday.
The consolidated clinic will be open five days a week, with eight chairs.