We’re claiming credit – so should you

Bill Suen DHAA CEO

TIME FLIES AS I reflect on my nearly four years on the job as the CEO of DHAA since May 2019. Our profession has changed so much with the waves of challenges that kept coming.

First was the declaration of the pandemic that triggered a series of challenges to the profession in terms of restricted practice to avoid aerosol transmission of the virus, the mandatory vaccination requirements that were further complicated by the different state and territorial governments all going their own ways with the applications of all these measures. The impact of all these included a surge of industrial relation matters that members sought advice on due to redundancies and entitlement disputes, followed by financial hardship to many. The DHAA provided exceptional services to its members throughout this period and offered prompt pandemic information, IT advice, and also raised many practical issues with the employer groups and the various Commonwealth and State Governments while liaising with key professional bodies for consistent messaging across our industry. The DHAA also dug deep in its reserve to offer both discounted and deferred membership and PI insurance renewal. The DHAA peer support network was also found to be very useful in providing comfort to many who utilised it at the time.

Many face-to-face CPD events, including the flagship National Symposium, had to be cancelled. With the help of the dedicated staff and an army of passionate volunteers, many of these events were turned into online activities and the result was astonishing. We were able to reach out to a lot more participants, at a much lower cost and provide high-quality CPD for everyone. A win-win for all was achieved through this collective effort.

Our fight against the union’s effort to have our profession covered by the inferior Health Professionals and Support Services Award was not successful and the threat of a massive reduction in remuneration levels was real at the time. The DHAA immediately activated our contingency plan by joining up with ADOHTA to collect and publish the market rates for our profession widely so that both employers and employees are able to access this important information. The strategy appears to be working with anecdotal information received through the DHAA employment services indicating that the remuneration level has been more or less maintained despite a constant downward pressure being exerted by the presence of the much lower award rates.

After decades of advocacy work, our profession finally gained access to provider numbers last year, making us truly independent practitioners in the health system. While there has been a lot of hard work done by many over a long period of time in laying the foundation, there is little doubt that the DHAA Bad Mouth Advocacy campaign was the trigger for the Federal Government to make the policy change. The campaign was a highly structured and coordinated effort of many DHAA members with consistent messaging to politicians and government officials across the country at the same time.

Other advocacy works are ongoing at both the Commonwealth and State levels and we hope with time, persistence and coordinated efforts through the DHAA, we will see more positive changes coming through for our profession.

We also note that the professional indemnity insurance costs of major insurance companies had dropped significantly over the past few years as a result of DHAA offering its members PI insurance, putting pressure on other companies to review their prices. We are also seeing the membership fee of the alternative association being reviewed to stay competitive as the DHAA has been working very hard to keep our membership fee among the lowest of all oral health and dental organisations.

I have little doubt that our profession and its members are in a much better place today compared to four years ago, and the DHAA can proudly claim credit for its part in this pleasing outcome. While many benefits of all our hard work in advocacy may extend to benefit the profession as a whole –whether you are a DHAA member or not – it is important to note that it is the support of DHAA members that makes it possible for all these to happen. So every DHAA member should be recognised for their part in this.

For the non-members, it is never too late to jump on board to support our collective effort to make our profession better. We are claiming credits, and so should you.