Australia to scrap child dental care scheme
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- Published: Thursday, 24 March 2016 07:12
- Written by News Editor
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Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has said he is considering scrapping a dental health scheme, which has been used by around one million children since it was introduced. He told Parliament that the scheme — which gives children $1000 worth of free dental care every two years — was failing to live up to expectations and confirmed earlier reports that the future of the program was under review.
Mr Turnbull said the scheme was ‘nowhere near meeting its targets’ and commented: “Now we are working on dental reform and as part of that it is only natural that the Government considers the effectiveness of current programs. Every program’s effectiveness has to be examined regularly and we have a responsible to ensure that every dollar we invest in dental services delivers the best health outcomes possible. We want to ensure that funding is targeted to where it is needed most.”
The $2.7 billion program, introduced in 2014, was expected to treat three million patients, but to date it’s believed only one million children have used the means-tested Child Dental Benefits Scheme. Opposition Health Spokeswoman Catherine King said the government ‘only saw health as a source of budget cuts’. She claimed that the government had failed to make parents aware of the program by refusing to promote it. She said: “After deliberately hiding the scheme from parents, the Turnbull Government is now using that lack of promotion as cover to scrap a scheme its own health department has described as a success”.
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