The Federal Government has confirmed the it has received an interim report on dental health reform options from the independent National Advisory Council on Dental Health.

 

Federal Minister for Health and Aging Nicola Roxon has confirmed the report will be considered and further discussions will fellow before the report is finalised and published.

 

Ms Roxon has announced that the interim will not be released in its current form, while saying the final report will be issued in ‘due course’.

 

Greens Health Spokesman Richard Di Natale released a scathing appraisal of the state of the country’s oral health.

 

“Australia's oral health is poor. A third of people say they can’t afford to go to the dentist, or delay going to the dentist because of the cost. This results in an unnecessary burden on the health system. 7-10% of GP visits are due untreated dental problem,” Senator Di Natale said.

 

The interim report coincides with a separate report published by the Brotherhood of St Laurence, which found that the inaccessibility of dental care costs the economy $1.3 billion per year while promoting social exclusion

 

The End the Decay: The cost of poor dental health and what should be done about it report analysed existing data to estimate the disease burden of untreated dental conditions - and the resulting economic burden. The report’s authors, Professor Jeff Richardson from Monash University and Bronwyn Richardson from Campbell Research and Consulting, found that the direct and indirect costs to the economy are significant.

 

The key findings of the brotherhood’s report are:

  • The direct and indirect costs to the economy of poor dental health are between $1.3 billion and $2 billion annually
  • Hospital admissions from dental conditions are the largest category of preventable acute hospital admissions, costing the health system $223 million each year
  • At least 1 million work days and at least 600,000 school days are lost each year because of poor dental health costing the economy at least $660 million in lost productivity.
  • Children in the lowest socioeconomic areas had 70% more decay in their teeth than children in the highest socioeconomic areas.
  • Adults on the lowest incomes were almost 60 times more likely to have no teeth than those on the highest incomes
  • While the prevalence of people without teeth has fall to almost zero (0.3%) in the top 25% of incomes, 17.3% of adults in the lowest 25% of incomes had no natural teeth.
  • Indigenous people were twice as likely to have untreated decay in comparison to non-indigenous people.

 

The brotherhood’s report can be found here