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Dental delays frustration

Posted on April 24, 2009, 3:03pm

Queues of angry patients are expected to grow while the search continues to replace two dentists who have resigned from Mount Gambier Community Health dental services.

Since the two dentists resigned and left Mount Gambier on March 13 and April 17 respectively, attempts to recruit full time replacements have been unsuccessful and patients are being treated on a triage basis by visiting dentists.

SA Dental Services director Dr Martin Dooland told The Border Watch that a recruitment process to attract dentists had been unsuccessful.

“We have recruited another dentist to the area, but there have been unavoidable, non-SA Dental related, delays in her arrival,” Dr Dooland said.

“We were advised late last month that an offer of employment made to another dentist had been declined due to changed family circumstances, so we will again attempt to recruit another resident dentist for the area.”

Dr Dooland said it may take up to three months before a resident dentist arrived due to a national dentist shortage and unavoidable delays with recruiting suitable qualified practitioners from overseas.

“In the interim, services will continue to be provided by visiting dentists,” he said.

But a frustrated Mount Gambier resident, who asked to have his name withheld, told The Border Watch it was “just not good enough”.

“My wife waited two and a half years for new dentures before they were finally made,” he said.

“When she returned to have her teeth pulled to have the dentures fitted, she was told there was no dentist to see her and they finally gave her a tentative appointment, which they can cancel at any time, at the end of next month.”

The man said when his wife arrived at the community health dental service yesterday, she was told “they hoped to soon have a dentist working two days a week”.

“That means they will have a production line going with one dentist working two days a week to take the strain of two dentists, five days a week,” he said.

The man said he took his wife to a private dentist, where he was told he would have to pay a lot of money to have his wife’s teeth pulled.

“We are pensioners and can’t afford it — we can’t even afford private health insurance,” he said.

“What upsets me is that the bigger Mount Gambier gets, the more services we lose.”

A private dental surgery receptionist said in the past few weeks the clinic practice had received many queries from people who had been unable to access dental health services at the community health facility.

“We are more than willing to take these patients in, but often when they hear how much it will cost them they don’t make appointments,“
she said.

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Comments

2 Responses to “Dental delays frustration”

  1. Ebony Jackson on April 24th, 2009 4:36 pm 1

    This is a pretty awful story and it makes me feel sad for the people who depend on public dental health services.

    However, just because one may be a “pensioner”… this immediately worries me because too many people are too comfortable with this status. Being a pensioner does not afford people automatic placement at a front of a que.….just because you are unable to pay for private health cover.

    Many pensioners budget carefully, just to have private cover. You say you and your wife are both pensioners. I wonder if you would be willing to just take on extras cover.…this would afford you both dental and optical benefits.

    I too depend on a pension but I make sure of my access to a dentist should I need emergency treatment by having the security of my private health insurance.

    If more people were prepared to go without other social, or unnecessary luxuries this would make things a lot easier for everyone.

    Private health insurance is a better investment than a lotto ticket, or spending a few dollars on wasted items you don’t need.

  2. pyrrho on April 26th, 2009 10:18 am 2

    Yet another reason to fast track fluoridation.