2 minute read
Introduction
“A national shame” is how one of our dentist members describes access to oral health care in Aotearoa NewZealand.
How can it be that hundreds of thousands of NewZealanders have teeth removed each year due to decay, that a very large percentage of adults never see a dentist, or that for two years the 9,000 residents of Wairoa have not had local adult dental services?
As the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists Toi Mata Hauora, we represent doctors and dentists working in the public health system. Our dentists, along with our oral and maxillofacial surgeons treat people with complex medical and dental conditions. Others co-ordinate and provide dental services in the community. They are pulling children’s teeth under anaesthetic, they are dealing with a big uptick in referrals for medically compromised patients, and they are turning people away in pain due to long waiting lists and a stark lack of resourcing. Covid has added to the pressures. Dental treatment in Aotearoa New Zealand is prohibitively expensive and feeds directly into overall health inequity. Say the words “I have to go to the dentist” to friends and you’ll jokingly be told to “take out a bank loan”.
Teeth and oral health are integral to our general health and wellbeing, yet funding for oral healthcare makes up a paltry 2% of Government health spending. At its annual conference in 2018, the Labour Party voted to adopt a policy of free dental care but there’s been radio silence since. Budget 2022 did fulfil a repeated election promise to boost the emergency special needs grant for dental care after 25 years with no increase at all. Cost benefit data shows that up front support for free and subsidised access to adult dental care, while carrying a weighty upfront price tag, would save millions of health dollars in the longer term. Public health dentistry is also at the sharp end of wider public health debates on the determinants of ill health and issues such as fluoridation, water-only schools, and sugar taxes. This publication brings together much of what we know about the current state of dental health care in Aotearoa NewZealand and what it looks like on the ground through comments and observations from our frontline dentists. It doesn’t paint an uplifting picture but does suggest steps towards improvement. Let’s face it, if we do nothing, the decay will continue to eat into ongoing health inequities.
