Budget fails public dentistry

The Victorian State Budget does nothing to address some of the worst gaps in the Victorian health system, according to the Victorian Oral Health Alliance (VOHA).
VOHA Tony McBride spokesman said today that the Budget fails thousands of Victorians most in need of immediate dental care, “bordering on wilful neglect”.
He said the Budget offers less per person this year. Mr McBride said that the unchanged dental treatment targets are an effective decrease 3.45%.
To read VOHA's media release, click here.

State-wide general dental waiting list up slightly

There were 112,337 Victorians waiting for general dental care at the end of last June, according to the 2007 DHSV Quality of Care Report, Reasons to Smile. The previous year there were 110,579 people waiting for general dental care – a 14% fall from 2004-05 (168,366). The agency's Annual Report outlines a number of achievements during 2006-07:

• Providing treatment to 304,565 patients – a 1.4% increase on the previous year
• Of these, DHSV treated 125,781 patients directly, with the remainder being treated by community dental agencies and private sector providers
• The Royal Dental Hospital of Melbourne’s emergency department saw 17,951 patients – a 16.4% increase

NHMRC reaffirms support for fluoridation

The National Health and Medical Research Council, Australia's peak health science research body, has recently issued a Public Statement on The Efficacy and Safety of Fluoridation 2007 reaffirming its support for this major disease prevention measure.

The updated NHMRC recommendation reads:

"Fluoridation of drinking water remains the most effective and socially equitable means of achieving community-wide exposure to the caries prevention effects of fluoride. It is recommended that water be fluoridated in the target range of 0.6 to 1.1 mg/L, depending on climate, to balance reduction of dental caries and occurrence of dental fluorosis."

Victorian dental waiting list data updated

Waiting times for public dental care as at June 2007 were recently updated at the Your Hospitals website, published by the Department of Human Services.

The VOHA website has now collated all of the new data, and provided summaries and graphs which provide a much clearer picture of trends and the overall situation.

While there have been improvements at many clinics, the average waiting time across the State remains at just over 23 months, and patients in some areas still experience waiting times of 4 to 5 years.

Dental report card - Federal Election 2007

A report card on the dental policies proposed by the major parties participating in the forthcoming Federal Election has been published by the ADA Inc.

The National Oral Health Alliance, representing a range of professional. community, welfare and consumer groups, issued a media release on 18 September which called for all parties to:

1. As a first step, ensure that all people on concession cards have a free basic course of dental care every 2 years;
2. Provide the funding for this initiative through the States and Territories on the condition that the States and Territories bring their own expenditure up to the new level of Commonwealth funding, extend water fluoridation to all communities, ensure that all children and eligible adults receive one course of general oral health care every two years, and ensure that no one waits longer than 24 hours to receive emergency dental care for swelling, infection and bleeding, or serious and persistent pain;
3. Conduct a full national review of the current oral health workforce.

Duelling dental programs

The Federal Opposition has announced that a Labor Government would reinstate the Commonwealth dental program at a cost of $290 million over three years. The ALP suggests that this program would create up to one million additional dental sessions over this period.

Under the scheme, the money would be given to the States and Territories enabling them to supplement existing public dental services or buy private sector appointments for public patients. Currently about 650,000 people are on public dental waiting lists.

The Coalition’s dental program gives Medicare funding for dental care in the private system for people with chronic health conditions that affect their oral health and the elderly. It is costed at $385 million over four years - which is roughly the same annual allocation as is offered by the ALP scheme.

ADA’s Federal President, Dr John Matthews, said there were merits in both plans but questioned the capacity of Labor’s scheme to provide one million more visits.

The National Oral Health Alliance called on all parties to ensure that all concession cardholders had a free basic dental care every two years, extend water fluoridation to all communities, and conduct a national review of the oral health workforce.

Children's Television Advertising Standards Review

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has published public submissions in response to their review of the Children’s Television Standards (CTS) at their website.

According to the ACMA, this review "aims to ensure that the CTS are operating effectively in the current environment and to identify the building blocks required to position the CTS for the future media environment".

A number of organisations associated with the Victorian Oral Health Alliance have made submissions to this review, with special emphasis on banning junk food advertising to children, and copies of these can be accessed at the ACMA website. Look for submissions by the Coalition on Food Advertising to Children, the Australian Dental Association, VicHealth, and Choice, amongst others.

Dentists too thinly spread in rural Australia

The Australian Dental Association issued a media release yesterday calling on the Federal Government to do more to address the maldistribution of the current dental workforce, which is negatively impacting on the delivery of services in areas of need such as in rural, regional and remote parts of Australia.

Key recommendations in the release are as follows:

"The ADA calls on the Commonwealth Government to take the following steps to alleviate dental workforce shortages in regional, rural and remote parts of Australia:
• Fund an optional clinical placement year for graduating dentists (University and overseas trained dentists). This placement year, to be served mainly in the public dental sector (although some private rural placements should be considered in areas of special need) would increase access to dental care for public sector patients and significantly reduce waiting lists. The ADA believes in a clinical placement year but acknowledges this will require additional infrastructure and mentors.
• Create further scholarships for dental students from rural and remote parts of Australia to encourage graduates to practice in these areas.
• Extend the general practitioner and medical specialist relocation program to dentists. (This program offers financial grants for GPs and medical specialists to relocate to areas of medical doctor shortage.) Currently, “doctors can apply for grants of up to $30,000 to establish a new practice, or up to $20,000 to join an existing practice in an area of doctor shortage”.
• Create a moratorium or debt forgiveness on all dental graduates who in turn agree to provide their services in regional, rural and remote areas or in the public sector. The extent of the moratorium or debt forgiveness could reflect the period of time the dental graduate undertakes practice in these particular areas. The longer the period of guaranteed service in regional, rural or remote areas, the greater the moratorium or debt forgiveness.
• Provide accommodation assistance to enable under graduate students to attend rural clinics as is in place for medical students."

VicHealth chief calls for junk food ad ban

Todd Harper, CEO of VicHealth, is reported in the Sunday Age yesterday calling on the government to legislate to ban junk food advertising in the interests of addressing the obesity and diabetes epidemics.

The same risk factors leading to increased rates of obesity and diabetes also contribute to dental decay, and three member bodies of the Victorian and National Oral Health Alliances, the Australian Dental Association, Australian Dental & Oral Health Therapists Association and Public Health Association of Australia, are also participants in the Coalition on Food Advertising to Children.

According to their website, "This coalition includes many key Australian health and consumer organisations, and is calling for a marked reduction in the commercial promotion of foods and beverages to children under 14 years old. The first step they advocate is to extend the statutory regulations to prohibit all television food and beverage advertising during programs where children make up a significant proportion of the viewing audience. This does not preclude the promotion of healthy eating messages to children through non-commercial social marketing".

The Pull the Plug on Food Advertising campaign is being run to help make the job of parents easier, and to give our kids a healthier future.

Register Online - Sign on to the Pull the Plug campaign

For more information visit http://www.chdf.org.au/foodadstokids/

Government extends EPC dental scheme

Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott announced today that eligible patients receiving dental treatment under the Enhanced Primary Care (EPC) Scheme would now receive up to $4250 worth of Medicare funded care over two consecutive years.

This news was welcomed by ADA President Dr John Matthews, who said "the ADA had understood that the Enhanced Primary Care program would provide eligible patients with a rebate of $2000 per annum. The announcement of the rebate being $4000 over two years will enable a more comprehensive delivery of dental treatment to help those patients more effectively deal with the complications of chronic illness."

While the ADA welcomed the increase, it also expressed concern that funding has not been targetted to the financially disadvantaged and particularly those 650,000 on dental waiting lists. Similar concerns were also expressed by the Opposition.
These new Medicare EPC arrangements are due to commence from 1 November 2007, subject to the passage of legislation. The new dental service arrangements involve an estimated cost of about $380m over four years.

ADA Inc calls for elderly not to be ignored

The Australian Dental Association has urged the Government to address the oral health needs of Australia's elderly following the National Seniors Australia (NSA) launch of its election priorities in Parliament House.

In a media release issued today, ADA President Dr John Matthews noted that "for people aged over 65 years, the prevalence of tooth decay, gum disease, dry mouth and oral cancer, is higher than for the general population. Frequency of teeth extractions associated with gum disease also increases with age. Access to dental care can become more difficult as people get older, while oral diseases have the potential to impact negatively on older people's general health and social functioning."

Dr Matthews said; "It's time for Governments to take responsibility and implement the range of initiatives outlined in Australia's National Oral Health Plan, signed off by all government Health Ministers, to improve older people's oral health."

New research on access to dental care

A new survey on access to dental care, released by Australia Fair, has revealed that:

• 90% of people think that regular visits to the dentist are important to maintain healthy teeth and mouths;
• 23% of people say they haven’t seen a dentist in over 2 years;
• 46% of people reported that it would be difficult for them to pay for basic preventative treatment ($300) today;
• 75% of people stated that the Federal Government must at least share the funding for dental care and only 5% think it is State Government responsibility alone;
• 46% of people stated that the cost of dental care influences their decision to see a dentist regularly.

The Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) is a participating body in Australia Fair, and ACOSS Executive Director Andrew Johnson said, "This research reinforces the fact that Australia has a crisis in access to dental care, particularly for low income and disadvantaged Australians."

Australia Fair has also released a broadcast-quality clip on You Tube, an online letter which Australians can e-mail to their Federal MPs asking for Federal Government support for dental care for people on low incomes, and a participation kit for local groups to find out more about oral health.

Physicians say "put the mouth back in the body"

The Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) recently issued a media release calling on state and Federal governments to "finally realise that the mouth can no longer be excluded from the body, and that oral health cannot be separated from health in general".

Professor Stephen Leeder, RACP spokesperson and co-director of the Menzies Centre for Health Policy said health policies, including health financing, needed to take account of this reality.

“There is increasing research and awareness of the connection between oral and general health,” he said.

“The failure to treat dental problems can lead to, or exacerbate, other illnesses elsewhere in the body. For example poor oral health has been linked to arthritis, coronary heart disease, diabetes and cardiovascular disease to varying degrees.

“And for children, dental caries is the single most common chronic childhood disease."

“There’s a contest at present between the States and the Commonwealth as to who should pay for public dentistry. We have yet to care for the hundreds of thousands of people waiting for treatment in public dental services. The oral health care scene in rural areas is especially troubling.”

“The RACP clearly perceives the unity of physical and dental health,” Professor Leeder said.

“The public dental workforce at present often faces the demoralising task of extracting rather than saving teeth, because by the time patients get to see them, it is too late for dental restoration.”

Professor Leeder’s comments were based on two dental health policy papers commissioned by the Menzies Centre in recent years from Professor John Spencer, Australia’s leading dental epidemiologist, in Adelaide.

“The various governments must also re-think how the dental workforce is trained and used and how problems can be fixed now and in the longer term.”

The RACP encourages COAG to confront the problems of oral health funding and workforce as a combined State/Commonwealth issue.

Sunday Age editorial supports Labor dental plan

The Sunday Age today published an editorial supporting the ALP commitment to establish a national dental program which would directly address the treatment needs of an estimated 650,000 people on dental waiting lists around Australia.

The editorial accompanied a news story 'Smile - it's free dental care', in which Shadow Health Minister Nicola Roxon reportedly said that helping the states clear the 650,000 people currently on state government waiting lists had to be part of the solution to the dental crisis.

"Those waiting lists need to be cleared and we will provide assistance to the states to do that," she said. "We can't just set up a Commonwealth system to complement the state system without acknowledging that this is a crisis.

"They are all the same people to us — ordinary Australians who need dental care and we see it as our obligation to help them."

Costings for this Labor initiative are yet to be published.