The peak body for Australian dentists has praised today’s pre-budget announcement of $500 million for dental care.
The funding will be used to treat 400,000 people on the public dental waiting list and to help dentists relocate to rural and remote areas.
The package also includes money to co-ordinate pro bono work for disadvantaged patients, although more than half of the funding comes from other health savings.
The Australian Dental Association’s Shane Fryer says the funding allocation shows a commitment by the Government to provide dental care to the disadvantaged.
“It’s about 30 per cent of the population that aren’t getting to the dentist now. In that group, there are people who have been on the public dental waiting lists for a significant amount of time,” he said.
“This initiative will certainly go some way to addressing the needs of those people.”
Carol Bennet from the Consumer Health Forum of Australia says there is a genuine crisis in dental health, which has lead to widespread suffering through neglect.
“[People are] often in pain, they often can’t eat or sleep and have trouble with self esteem, and are embarrassed because of the state of their teeth,” she said.
“This is a national disgrace where we’ve got to the situation where so many people are suffering to this extent and it’s fantastic to see that the Government has listened to the community and finally addressed this national disgrace.”
Treasurer Wayne Swan has told Channel 9 too many people are waiting too long for dental care.
“We have decided to make that provision because the numbers on public dental waiting lists at the moment are extraordinarily high – something like 400,000 people,” he said.
“So we’re pretty keen on making room in the budget for this one off blitz to get those numbers down, because a lot of people out there are suffering.”
Green victory
The Greens made dental reform a condition of its agreement to support the Gillard Government, and Senator Richard Di Natale says it is a huge step forward for the public dental sector.
“Dental care is a huge issue for this country. There are many hundreds of thousands of people who can’t get treatment at the moment on public waiting lists and there are many hundreds of thousands more who don’t even try because the waiting lists are so long,” he said.
“We know that at least one in three people, and probably more, don’t go and see a dentist because they can’t afford it.”
Senator Di Natale says the Government has honoured its promise to the Greens to address dental care.
“When you have untreated dental disease it leads to all sorts of other problems, issues of nutrition and infection, it can lead to heart disease,” he said.
