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.