Labour and Nats both commit to dental boost

Labour and National both plan to spend millions of dollars more on dental services for children and teenagers.

Among $10 million of child health initiatives announced yesterday by National, the party said it would:

* Spend an extra $3.5 million a year on the scheme for private dentists' treatment of children's complicated dental problems,

* Boost spending by $4.5 million on the adolescent oral health service agreement, to allow teenagers to be treated in a timely way, and

* Expand the dental therapists training programme.

After decades of improvements, children's oral health plateaued in the 1990s.

Major problems have emerged in state-funded dental treatment. These include the flight of many private dentists from the schemes treating adolescents and serious child dental problems because they consider the fees too low; the outdated nature of many school dental clinics; and the shortage of dental therapists.

The Labour-led Government's response is a commitment to spending about $100 million on new facilities and equipment over the next five years, an unspecified increase in operating funding and a 20 per cent increase in funding for dental therapy studies.

Many children are treated at on-site school dental clinics while teenagers up to 18 can be treated by private dentists who can claim state funding. Some in both age groups are treated at mobile clinics.

Many of the 45 per cent of primary and intermediate schools with on-site dental clinics would retain them under Labour's policy, but some school clinics would be replaced by community clinics, either mobile or permanent.

Labour has also committed to increasing the numbers of health-board dental therapists and dental assistants by 20 per cent and 70 per cent respectively.

The Dental Association, representing dentists, said it was delighted by National's policy, but noted that Labour's did not mention dentists' withdrawing from state-funded treatment.

Executive director Dr David Crum said under-funding of the child and adolescent schemes had created a crisis in young people's dental care.

"Young children requiring many tooth extractions wait months on general anaesthetic waiting lists. Children and communities deserve better than this."

National had committed to using dentists' skills and to collaboration between the public and private sectors, he said.