*Demand dental practice as primary healthcare service
because they don’t have access to it. They don’t even know that they should go to a dentist and not general hospital when they have tooth ache.
She noted that the health insurance scheme, which should improve and aid accessibility of dental care and services, has not been been beneficial to dentists in the country, adding that the current NHIS was affecting penetration of dental services.
“We have the health insurance scheme that should enable people have access to dental care. Right now, the way NHIS is being run, some of us are not benefiting from it as planned. In the plan, dental care is placed as secondary health care and this means that when a person has dental challenges and walks into a hospital, the doctor must refer him/her to a dentist before she can access dental care.
“What we want and are agitating for is that dental care should be made directly accessible to the patients and it should be regarded as primary health care service.”
Nwauzor, who noted that dental health risk according to the world health organization (WHO) is the most occurring and prevalent medical condition, which is high in Nigeria, with the least treatment, added that the shift to primary health care would enable dental practices in communities, as dentists would move into the suburb to set up dental facil- ities, making it more accessible, available and affordable to the citizens.
“It is only when dental care is rated as primary care that we can begin to move into remote communities.
“How many are we that we still having dentists that have no job? If it is rated as primary, private dentists can begin to penetrate and establish in other rural places.
“It is worrisome that dental issue is the most occurring condition in Nigeria, but unfortunately the least treated. Oral care should be given more importance.”
The President, Health Care Providers Association of Nigeria (HCPAN), Dr. Umar Sanda, who said there were issues facing the NHIS, with the present suspension of NHIS top official due to some fraudulent activities, stressed the need for dental care to be placed as primary care, as majority of the dental cases are found among school children.
“It should be classified as primary care as we have many dental cases especially among primary school children. We have up to 24 million public primary schjool children that can be enrolled into the NHIS public-primary health insurance programme. The dentists will come in fully into that programme as there are lots of dental problems to solve at that age. So dentistry can stand as primary, secondary and tertiary health care,” he added.