Wednesday, 2 August 2023

Dental services

Sarah MANSFIELD (Western Victoria) (18:04): (351) My adjournment matter is for the Minister for Health, and the action I am seeking is that she acknowledge the health impacts of being unable to afford timely dental care and take action to reduce public dental wait times across all of Victoria. Next week is Dental Health Week, an important time to take stock of an area of health care that is seriously neglected. Unfortunately we have a legacy in this country of separating dental health care from our broader public health care system, and that has devastating effects on people’s health.

Dental health is inextricably linked with bodily health, because our teeth are actually part of our body. Not only does poor oral health immediately impact eating, speech, self-esteem, education and employment opportunities, dental disease is also associated with a host of medical conditions, including infections, stroke, heart disease, type 2 diabetes, adverse pregnancy outcomes, neurodegenerative conditions, inflammatory bowel disease and respiratory conditions, and with wait times for public dental care sometimes reaching in excess of three years in some parts of the state, people are being forced into emergency services, placing extra burden on our already stretched hospitals. In 2021 there were over 17,000 potentially preventable hospitalisations in Victoria due to dental conditions – that is 17,000 hospitalisations that would likely not have occurred if people had access to timely and affordable dental care.

An interim report from the Greens-led federal Senate inquiry into access to dental care in Australia outlines the findings of a nationwide community survey. This survey received the largest amount of responses to a committee survey in our nation’s history. The interim report demonstrates that the biggest barrier to access is cost – people simply cannot afford to go to the dentist. Victoria has public dental services, but eligibility for these is highly restricted and wait times are significant, with many people waiting years to access basic care. Victoria has the second-highest waiting list in the country.

At the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee this year the Minister for Health made assurances that dental health wait times had been reduced to 14.8 months on average. The improvement was largely attributable to a one-off voucher scheme designed to deal with COVID waiting list blowouts. Freedom-of-information data has shown that this statewide average masks marked regional variation ‍– your postcode still determines whether you will have to wait years to access public dental care. For example, the average wait time as of June was 44.7 months in Richmond and 38.1 months in Warrnambool.

Like other areas of health, investing in prevention is critical to avoiding the need for emergency care or the development of chronic disease, yet accessing routine preventative dental health care is just too expensive for too many people, and a significant proportion of our community can only seek dental care in emergency situations. This needs to change.