Dental Difficulties Down Under
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- Published: Friday, 20 May 2022 08:55
- Written by Guy Tuggle
- Hits: 1354
Some Australians too, have difficulty accessing public dental services.
As GDPUK reports on an almost daily basis, the UK’s publicly funded NHS dental system is in a state of crisis across vast swathes of the land. Patients, including many in severe pain, are unable to access timely or indeed any care, unless they have the means to go private. But the problem, it seems, is not unique to our shores.
Australia’s ABC News reports that dentistry has become a burning issue in the country’s Federal elections. An election briefing by Stephanie Daizell on the station’s news website exposes the grim news that a quarter of Australians over 75 have teeth affected by decay and 20% have complete tooth loss. Now there are calls for ‘whichever party wins government to invest more in dental care.
GDPUK has consulted the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare website for clarification of how the continent funds dental services and can reveal that the overwhelming amount is funded directly by patients.
According to the government site, ‘in 2019–20, around $9.5 billion was spent on dental services in Australia. The majority of this cost (around $5.5 billion, or 58%) was paid by patients directly, with individuals spending on average $216 on dental services over the 12-month period, not including premiums paid for private health insurance (AIHW 2021). Private health insurance providers financed around $2.0 billion (20%) of total expenditure for dental services (AIHW 2021).’
State and territory governments provide most public dental services, and access is largely targeted towards people on low incomes or holders of concession cards. Eligibility requirements can vary between states and territories. Priority access to public dental services is given to people who are socially disadvantaged or on low incomes, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, people living in regional and remote areas and people with additional and/or specialised health care needs.
In an account that will sound highly familiar to many NHS dental workers, ABC News reported that ‘many patients spend years on lists for public dental clinics’ and pressure has been building on the political parties to spend more.
Dr Stephen Liew, Australian Dental Association vice-president said additional funding for the sector was long overdue. “Dental care has been the canary in the coal mine of full body health in Australia” he said. According to Dr Liew, there needed to be a ‘targeted senior benefits programme for aged care residents’ to fund basic services, train additional staff and ‘include oral assessments in the over-75s health check performed by GPs.’ This, he said, would cost around $95M a year.
“We have stories of patients in aged care facilities with almost no teeth left, with abscesses, pus bleeding and discomfort to a level where they cannot be treated” Dr Liew added.
Lobbyists point out that the cost of doing nothing exceeded the cost of action as left untreated, oral diseases morphed into far more serious illnesses that placed additional burdens and expenses on all health sectors.
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