Over $300 million set aside in the budget for dental assistance

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDMay 8 2012

The Australian federal government is making efforts to make public clinics the focus of its $300 million boost to dental services.

The move was announced by federal Health Minister Tanya Plibersek at the weekend. It is claimed to provide $345.9m over three years to reduce the long waiting lists for public dental treatment. This could benefit 400,000 people. Ms Plibersek also announced that the Voluntary Dental Graduate Year Program will be increased from 50 to 100 placements per year by 2016 at a cost of $35.7 million over three years. “This funding boost will provide practice experience and professional development opportunities, including in under-serviced areas, to additional dental graduates,” she said.

The money will begin to show from 2013-14 onwards, while other elements of the package include $77.7m over four years to pay relocation grants of up to $120,000 to encourage city dentists to move to the bush, and grants of $250,000 to cover the costs of setting up dental surgeries. Another $45.2m over four years will pay for work placements in public dental services for 50 new oral health therapist graduates each year.

The Budget will include $10.5 million in funding for national oral health promotion activities, while $450,000 over three years will go to non-government organisations to co-ordinate the provision of pro bono dental health services for those in greatest need. “These services will be provided to people with limited means such as Indigenous Australians, the homeless, women and children in shelters, and refugees,” she said.

This move was welcomed by the Greens, who made their support for the Gillard government conditional on there being significant progress towards more comprehensive dental services. It was also supported by groups such as the Consumers Health Forum and the Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association.

However some dentists are sceptical. They said the funding could have been put to better use by improving the Medicare-based Chronic Disease Dental Scheme that the government has sought to close down. Hans Zoellner, chairman of the Association for the Promotion of Oral Health, said increasing the funding to public dental clinics would be “relatively ineffective” because only 10 per cent of dentists worked in the public system, and previous attempts to lure more to switch from private work had largely failed.

“It's not a bad thing -- the two points are that it's a very small amount of money, and the public system simply doesn't have the capacity to spend that money quite often, because they can't attract the workforce, and this is on top of state government funding which isn't uniform,” Associate Professor Zoellner said.

Greens health spokesman Richard Di Natale said while the party's goal remained a Medicare-style scheme covering dentistry, it agreed with the government's National Dental Advisory Council that some “foundation measures” were necessary first. “We are pleased we managed to negotiate that outcome, and the next step is to replace the Chronic Disease Dental Scheme with a (better) national scheme,” Senator Di Natale said.

The Australian Dental Association's Shane Fryer said 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 said there is a genuine crisis in dental health, which has led 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 said 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.”