Dental health 'time bomb' threatens rural Australia

September 24, 2007

While researchers agree that Australia's ageing population is a "time bomb" for the dental health system, a symposium in Melbourne last week was told that the looming crisis could be much more serious in rural and regional Australia than in the big cities.

Professor Victor Minichiello from the University of New England said that rural and regional Australia faced "a double – if not triple – jeopardy". "Such communities face a significantly older population profile," he said, "a more severe shortage of dental and other health practitioners (often overloaded with patient demands), and a higher percentage of Indigenous people and people with lower socio-economic status than their metropolitan cousins."

Professor Minichiello (pictured here), who is Pro Vice-Chancellor and Dean of UNE's Faculty of The Professions, is a gerontologist and public health researcher. He was a keynote speaker at the symposium at the University of Melbourne on Friday 21 September, organised by that university's School of Dental Science and the Cooperative Research Centre for Oral Health Science. Dental researchers, ageing specialists, and health officials met to discuss how to prepare for an ageing population while dealing with a shortage of dentists and oral health practitioners.

"People in rural Australia have inadequate access to local dental services, leading to poor dental health and its consequent adverse effects on general health," Professor Minichiello said. He quoted data published in the Australian Dental Association Directory this year showing that Australia is facing a serious shortage with respect to the number of dentists available per 100,000 people. "The shortage is a national issue, but non-metropolitan centres face particular challenges," he said. "For example, the most recent statistics reveal a ratio of 55 dentists per 100,000 people in metropolitan NSW compared to 17 dentists per 100,000 in rural and regional NSW. These average figures translate to one dentist per 1,818 people in the cities and one dentist per 5,882 people in country areas.

"The statistics in particular locations are quite serious: Tamworth has a population of 43,000 but only 12 dentists, Port Macquarie has a population of 64,000 people with 13 dentists, Taree has a population of 47,000 and 7 dentists, Lismore has 44,000 people and 10 dentists, and Moree, with a population of 15,000, finds itself in a crisis with only one dentist."

"It has been estimated that if we are to meet current levels of dental services with the current numbers of graduates, there will be a shortage of about 1,500 dental and oral health workers in Australia by 2010," Professor Minichiello continued. "Australia is lagging behind other nations with respect to its dental workforce. In contrast, for example, Japan has one dentist serving 1,390 people while Australia has one dentist serving 2,500 people."

He said that UNE and the University of Sydney were discussing how they could collaborate to respond to the crisis. "One possible solution is to train more dentists and oral health professionals who will graduate and work in the rural and regional public and private dental systems," he said. "Another is to work more closely with dental practitioners and the community to emphasise the value of health promotion programs in oral health."

Posted by Jim Scanlan at September 24, 2007 05:06 PM