The Australian Dental Association does not represent the interests of the general Australian society, quite on the contrary, they represent the economic interests of Dentist, and only cares for keeping Dentists wealthy. Why is it OK to have more Doctors to serve the undersupplied sections of our society, but when we are stating having more Dentists, the ADA cries out. Australia needs more Dentists. Dental services need to be an integral part of Medicare. Going to the Dentist should not be a luxury that most Australian cannot afford. And if there are more Dentists, then that is good for the general Australian population, that would mean more competition, and a reduction in absurd high fees from Dentists. Anyway, if Dentists start having some difficulty finding jobs, then they should move out from the leafy well off suburbs from the capital cities, and work at dental practices in smaller cities and towns, which desperately need Dentists.

Have you ever guessed why when when you go to the Doctor, you get charged $60 and then get back a good portion of that from Medicare, while when you go to the Dentist, they charge you $200 or more and, as dental services are excluded from Medicare, you do not get anything back?

Why accountants, information technology professionals, architects, and in general, many other professionals have to compete and adapt for jobs in a tight labour market in Australia, but Dentists should continue in their closed "old boys only club". Welcome to reality. If you want o be a Dentist, please compete, and be competitive, as everybody else!

At the end of the day, Australia as a society needs to decide what is more important: the continuation of the wealthy of Dentists, or more Dentists and added competition, more services and lower fees and more alternatives and affordability of dental services for the ordinary Australian.

More Dentists = Good for Australian society, more competition, more affordability

Less Dentists = Bad for Australian services, good for Dentists and for ADA, as that will continue allowing Dentist to continue ripping off the Australian population

Extracting big bucks

UNACCEPTABLE waiting times for dental services caused by qualification shortage and lack of interest to practice in the country? (The Advertiser, 21/1/13). Pull the other tooth!

Question: How do you ensure a dentist's healthy income? Answer: Limit the number of qualified tooth-tradies in the marketplace. More dentists to meet community demand would create service and price competition.

Dentists can't have that. That would decay their ability to charge exorbitant fees. Who would fund their offspring's college education and overseas ski trips? Luxury car dealers would surely go out of business. No, no ... keep the university entry score high and limit the number of places. Make sure only a select few end up skilled to extract the big bucks.

"Ridiculous" waiting lists, as described by the Australian Dental Association President Dr Jack Gaffey, are at the root, the result of a protect-the-patch conspiracy of his industry's making. X-ray that. He must think we cut our teeth yesterday to believe his rot.

The goal of dentistry is to achieve happy smiles. And dentists are certainly smiling ... all the way to the bank. Now, where did I put my brandy and pliers. Say Ahh! (Or should that be Argh!?)

JT animals

About six years ago the dental health of Australia was appalling. As a result of that the government rightly decided to open new Dental schools on several locations all over Australia.

If you see the news links listed at the end of my comment, you would see that, several months ago, the dental crisis in Australia is still worrying.

Now that a few more Dentists will graduate from Dental schools and an even much smaller amount of overseas qualified Dentists will qualify through the Australian Dental Council exams, this is starting to fix the acute problem of Dentists undersupply in Australia, now the representatitives of the Australian Dental Association (ADA), who represent the economic interest of Australian Dentists against the needs of the general Australian population, are been drama queens.

Why Dentists take for granted that being a Dentist = being rich and wealthy charging exorbitant fees for the oligopoly they have and preserve?

JT animals, you say that lower salaries, more competition = low quality, substandard, dental services. So, that would mean that all Dentists working at provate Dental practices provide excellent sevices, while all the Dentist working at public government hospitals (where they earn much less than in private practice) provide bad dental service. JT animals, what an obtuse way of thinking you have!

It is time the Australian general public unite and complaint against the abusive protectionist practices and onligopoly exerted by Dentists in Australia! Why having standard general dental treatment is a luxury for the middle class, and a fantasy for the lower socioeconomic espectrum of Australian society.

Besides, we need more Dentists to work in government public Dental clinics, so the ludricuous many years long waiting list get cleared to reasonable times. We also need more Dentist in rual Australia. Am I deslisional to ask for a First World dental health for Australia?

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Dental care leaves a bad taste in many mouths
The Age
15 June 2012
Henrietta Cook

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/dental-care-leaves-a-bad-taste-in-many-mouths-20120615-20f6k.html

"As the federal government and Greens negotiate reforms to the way Australians access dental care, about 400,000 Australians remain on public dental waiting lists, some waiting up to five years to access treatment."

"We have basically got to a point where we are looking at Third World conditions in a country like Australia. We should have never allowed it to get to this point"

"The situation is particularly bad in regional areas. The longest average wait in the state is 38 months at Northeast Health Wangaratta, compared to a state average of 17 months."

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WA patients face three-year wait for dentist
WA Today
21 February 2012

http://www.watoday.com.au/wa-news/wa-patients-face-threeyear-wait-for-dentist-20120220-1tjdv.html

"West Australians are waiting for up to three years for appointments at public dental clinics, with the waiting list growing to more than 24,000."

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If you read caefully all JT animals comments, you will clearly realise he strongly supports the current status quo stituation where Dentist (just Genneral Dentists, let's not even mention specialists) = Millionaires at the expense of the dental health of the general Australian population.

JT animals even admits that "the waiting times are concerning". He also admist that (sic) "Targeted government programs are needed for lower socioeconomic public dental care. A mass of dental graduates that will change profession because they can't get clinical experience due to insufficient training opportunities will not (and is not) solving the problems.

If any Australian government (irrespectevily of been Labour or the Coalition) decides to implement dental programs to try to address the disastrous dental health of Australians from lower socioeconmical background, even if the government sets apart adequate funding for these programs (say Denticare like dental programs), there would not be enought Dentist to treat this big volume of patients.

If new Dental graduates can't get clinical experience, they would for sure get heaps of practice working at government Dental hospitals trying to reduce the many years waiting lists. That is, of course, if Dentist are prepared to earn 120K a year in oublic hospitals, as opposed to earning 250+K in private Dental practices. And there is where the problem lies: Why being a Dentists = being Rich, why being a Dentist = treating patients and improving the Dental health of the general Australian population.

Another thing, why when accountants, IT professionals, architects, and other professionals have a constraint labour market, nobody says anything, but when Dentist are in that situation then ADA cryes out? I have one piece of advice for them and for Jt animals: "WELCOME TO THE REAL LIFE FOR MILLIONS OF AUSTRALIANS, WHERE YOU HAVE TO BE COMPETITIVE, RELOCATE IF REQUIRED, NOT BEING A SPOILT MEMBER OF AN "OLD BOYS CLUB:!!!".

And to Allayne Webster: your comments truly represent the frustation that most of Australian population (except ADA and the wealthy Dentists, whose interest they represent, and also except JT animals) feel. Enough of all these Dentists' privileges extracting heaps of money at the same time thery extract our teeth, laughing loud to the bank, while Australia has a third world country dental health!!!

JT animals,

I have extracted the date from the statistics that you mention, and I have sorted the different careers of recent graduate in that table. It can be seen clearly that Dentistry is in position 13 out of 40 careers in terms of graduate employment. So, if you worry about taxpayers funding Dentists that might have some difficulty finding full time job just immediately after graduation, what about worrying about funding these other 27 careers that have much lower job opportunities for graduates? (Visual\performing arts, Education - post\other, life Sciences, Social Sciences, psychology, chemistry, architecture, Humanities, languages, mathematics, law other, agriculture, Health other, Business Studies, physical Sciences, computer Science, urban\regional planning, Education - initial, Social Work, Economics, chemical Engineering, Electronic/computer Engineering, accounting, Veterinary Science, aeronautical Engineering, law, Building)

My question is: WHY DO DENTISTS HAVE TO HAVE A PREFERENTIAL TREATMENT ABOVE THE MOST OF OTHER PROFESSIONS IN AUSTRALIA??? WHY IS THIS WRONG SENSE OF ENTITLEMENT???

JT animals, your reasoning is completely faulted. If your line of thought is followed, most of professions currently taught at tertiary education institutions would need to be reduced. Then our youth will massively turn to be tradies, and after a while, there would also an oversupply of tradies!!!

JT, you way of thinking is completely retrograde. You are invoking to reduce the skilling of our young Australians, just to continue keeping Dentists undersupplied and appallingly overpaid, while thousands of Australian can not afford nor access basic general treatment. Dentists should be more realistic, come to terms with the working reality, be more competitive and do not expect $300 fee for a 35 minute consultation. Accountants, architects, business graduates have to be resourceful, resilient, adaptable, flexible and competitive, while Dentists now are whinging that their days of monopoly/oligopoly are over!

The government (either Labor or the Coalition if elected) should promote development of our industries, jobs, resourcefulness so more professionals in every field have more job opportunities. The target should be to grow, not to limit.

It is an offense and insult to the thousand of disadvantaged Australians to read JT animals comments (and ADA's request) asking for a reduction of Dentists when still there are appalling many years long waiting lists at public dental hospitals, when having basic dental treatment is a luxury that many Australians simply can not afford, when general dental services continue been excluded from Medicare.

AUSTRALIA AS A SOCIETY NEEDS TO DECIDE IF WE ARE GOING TO PLEASE ADA AND THE DENTISTS OR IF WE ARE GOING TO TAKE MEASURES TO TRY TO IMPROVE THE DENTAL HEALTH OF AUSTRALIA FROM ITS CURRENT THIRD WORLD LEVELS!!!

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http://www.graduatecareers.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/GCA-GradStats-2012_FINAL1.pdf

Table 2: Breakdown of bachelor degree graduates available for full-time employment, by field of education, 2012 (%)

A: In full-time employment
B: Seeking full-time employment, not working
C: Seeking full-time employment, working part-time or casual

N. Career A B C

01 medicine 98.1 00.9 01.0
02 pharmacy 98.1 01.6 00.2
03 mining Engineering 93.9 05.1 01.0
04 Surveying 93.0 07.0 00.0
05 nursing (initial) 92.2 02.0 05.9
06 civil Engineering 90.5 05.4 04.1
07 mechanical Engineering 88.4 07.3 04.4
08 Electrical Engineering 88.0 07.4 04.6
09 rehabilitation 87.0 04.4 08.5
10 nursing (post-initial) 86.1 03.9 10.0
11 other Engineering 85.4 07.9 06.7
12 geology 83.7 05.6 10.7
13 dentistry 83.6 02.5 13.8
14 Building 83.1 05.4 11.5
15 law 83.0 06.9 10.1
16 aeronautical Engineering 81.4 08.1 10.6
17 Veterinary Science 80.8 09.4 09.9
18 accounting 79.9 09.6 10.5
19 Electronic/computer Engineering 79.5 10.5 10.0
20 chemical Engineering 77.5 11.5 11.1
21 Economics 76.8 09.4 13.8
22 Social Work 75.3 10.2 14.5
23 Education - initial 74.9 04.5 20.7
24 urban\regional planning 74.8 10.0 15.2
25 computer Science 74.7 13.9 11.4
26 physical Sciences 74.6 11.0 14.5
27 Business Studies 74.5 09.2 16.2
28 Health other 73.3 09.1 17.6
29 agriculture 72.6 10.9 16.5
30 law other 69.9 12.2 17.9
31 mathematics 66.0 17.2 16.7
32 languages 65.5 13.0 21.5
33 Humanities 65.3 11.6 23.0
34 architecture 63.9 15.3 20.8
35 chemistry 63.2 16.0 20.9
36 psychology 63.1 12.5 24.5
37 Social Sciences 61.9 16.0 22.1
38 life Sciences 60.5 14.0 25.5
39 Education - post\other 58.8 11.8 29.4
40 Visual\performing arts 53.9 15.4 30.7

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Instead of obtuse request to cap the number of people studying Dentistry at Australian universities, which only effect would be to continue allowing Dentists practicing in private practices to have very limited competition and extract as much money from the general public, we should concentrate about trying to fix the appalling dental health state in Australia. ADA and JT only worry about poor young (and also the older established) Dentists who would have to face more competition. WHAT ADA AND JT DO NOT CARE AT ALL IS ABOUT THE DENTAL HEALTH OF THE MAJORITY OF AUSTRALIANS, ESPECIALLY OF THE UNPRIVILEGED ONES. I FIND THAT ATTITUDE SELFISH, ARROGANT AND INHUMANE IN EXTREME.

Instead of requesting a reduction in Dental students, wholistic solutions, approaching the comprehensive complexity of the Dental health in Australia should be taken.

What amazes me is why Dental health, and its exclusion from Medicare is seen as something separate from the health of the rest of the human body, Imagine if all heart illnesses, or all kidney conditions, or all pregnancy care were excluded from medicare? This is what is happening with the dental health in Australia.

I found an interesting 2012 article written by an Australian oral health scholar. I am reproducing here, it has very interesting points that, if we really are interested as a society to have the dental health that a prosperous and developed country as Australia deserves, should be considered when devising and implementing government dental policies and plans.

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How to Make Public Dentistry Work
Associate Professor Hans Zoellner
Association for the Promotion of Oral Health

May 2012

https://www.chf.org.au/pdfs/chf/HV-MAY2012_Zoellner.pdf

How to Make Public Dentistry Work

State and Territory governments are responsible for delivering public dental services, but the national public dental waiting list hovers around 500,000. Especially daunting is that this figure underestimates actual demand because many who are eligible for public dentistry have no serious expectation of ever being seen, so don’t register for appointments.

This would be damning of those responsible for public dentistry, were they not given excuse by being asked to do the numerically impossible; that is to deliver comprehensive dental care to almost 50 percent of the population with less than 16 percent of the nation’s dental workforce. The psychology of failure is insidious, because when nothing can be done, nothing becomes expected.

The proportional imbalance between public dental workforce and eligible patient population forces public dentistry to focus on emergency-style treatment, rather than delivery of comprehensive dental care. The sense that public dentistry is ‘poor dentistry for poor people’ may be galling for many dedicated public dental clinicians, but it is nonetheless a truthful assessment of the facts.

Dental clinicians working in the public sector have salaries lower compared with income in private practice, while the focus on basic and emergency dentistry undermines satisfaction in work, and hence the capacity to attract
and retain the public dental workforce.

One approach to correcting the imbalance between service capacity and demand in the public sector is to simply put more money into the public dental system. Salaries can be raised, and more clinicians may be employed. While this is superficially attractive, it unfortunately doesn’t work. Proof of this unpalatable fact lies in simple comparison of public dental spending across State and Territory jurisdictions. NSW, for example, spends close to half per public dental patient compared with many other states such as Queensland and Western Australia. Public dental waiting lists, and the type of service offered in these more richly funded states, however, are not appreciably better than in NSW. Separately, there are numerous rural incentive schemes to attract public dental clinicians to more isolated areas, but these programs are generally unsuccessful in redistributing workforce. Money simply doesn’t seem to be enough.

During the Keating years, an increase in public dental spending was made through yearly Federal grants to the States. Although this was welcome, State services did not have internal capacity to spend the money, with much Federal funding directed to private dentists via vouchers. It is saddening that some States used the Federal funds to reduce their own dental investment, with the effect of overall reduced government dental spending when the Keating scheme was eventually closed by the Howard Government.

In our free-market economy where remuneration and conditions are more attractive in the private sector, it is unlikely that it will ever be possible to expand the size of the public dental workforce sufficiently to meet demand, unless the public system is structurally changed.

Another approach to supporting public dentistry has been to reduce eligibility criteria and tightly ration services. While this certainly makes public system statistics look better, it nonetheless fails dismally in actually providing care
to people who cannot afford private dental practice. Of particular concern is Australia’s demographic profile of an ageing population, where most people have their natural teeth and require life-long dental maintenance therapy. We thus face a tsunami of demand for public dental service by ageing people on limited incomes, who will be increasingly unable to access public dental care in a progressively overwhelmed system.

All of this might sound hopeless, but I do believe there is a sensible solution that can be implemented in reasonable time to accommodate our rapidly ageing demographic. The solution is not to try and prop up the current
public dental service, but to instead redefine the role of the public system by creation of universal dental Medicare. By providing access to private dental services via Medicare, public dental services would be liberated from their currently impossible task of serving half the community with a smattering of dental clinicians. Instead, public dental services could concentrate on those patients who have medical or other problems too difficult or expensive to be provided by private dental practitioners. This would properly match public dental workforce to demand, and ensure that everybody who can be safely seen by private dentists has access to such service.

Precedent is well established in medicine. Despite occasional grumbles about public hospitals, the fact remains that they successfully deliver comprehensive and complex medical care to patients who are simply too difficult or too expensive to treat in private hospitals. Consultant physicians and surgeons derive high status from their public hospital appointments, as it is understood that only the better clinicians are able to cope with the complex needs of public hospital patients. The wide range of difficult cases encountered in public medical services also provides a rich educational environment for medical students, interns and specialist trainees. Note, this is the complete opposite to current arrangements in dentistry, where
the public system has become largely limited to basic dentistry, and it is in the private sector where most advanced dental services are delivered.

Putting dentistry into Medicare would not only make it possible for almost everyone on the public dental waiting list to be seen immediately by private dentists, but would also create a market in outer metropolitan suburbs for private dentistry. Currently, there are less than half as many private dentists in outer metropolitan areas compared with the wealthier suburbs, despite the greater clinical need in poor areas. This maldistribution of the dental workforce is at least in part because more people in the poorer suburbs don’t have the money for private dentistry, so there is no market to support new dental practices. Universal dental Medicare would create such a market, and help redistribute dental workforce to where it is actually needed. Some have argued that dental Medicare should be means tested. This would, however, be a mistake, not only because it is inconsistent with the rest of Medicare, but also because universality is needed for bulk-billing dental practices to become established, and push down the prices in private dental practices charging a gap above the Medicare schedule.

Were dental Medicare introduced, as is the current Federal Greens policy and the Coalition’s stated ambition, there would be no public dental waiting list, a shift in public dental services from emergency and basic dentistry to high quality service for complex and difficult patients, and creation of a public dental service attractive for the very best dental clinicians to exercise their skills. The public system can be saved, but only by investing in private dental service via Medicare.

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