dentist shortage

Is this a Third World country or not? After reading  a report out of Sydney I am starting to think the answer is “yes” especially in the field of public health and specifically in the chronic shortage of dentists in the public health service and the obscene and painful waiting lists for people to get their teeth fixed.

The figures out of New South Wales are shocking and I suspect  the situation is no better here in Victoria. We have talked a lot about people having to wait an eternity for a hip replacement or a knee reconstruction.

But turn the spotlight on dental care and the results – or lack of them – are a disgrace.

New data shows that people with no teeth and urgently need dentures are waiting up to three years to see a dentist.  Supposedly the maximum wait is three months. Pigs might fly.

Children who need fillings and should be seen within nine months – which is too long anyway – are waiting nearly two years. One woman who needed attention for four loose front teeth. She finally got an appointment and was told they had to come out. That was the good news. The bad news was that she would have to wait for between two and five years to have them replaced.

She was losing weight because of difficulties eating and so elected have one pulled out. There will be a gap in her self-conscious smile for at least two years.

A lot of the frustrated “join the queue’ patients- in- waiting are pensioners.

For decades they worked hard and paid their taxes. They can expect to be treated with dignity, professionalism and help in a public health system that is obviously failing them.

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2006