The decay at the core of dentistry

THE crisis in Scottish dentistry is growing ever deeper and it is posing a real danger to the nation’s health.

Generations of improvement is now in jeopardy with patients struggling to get treated on the NHS.

Labour are right to warn of a two-tier system developing where only the rich will soon be able to afford regular visits to the dentist.

It goes completely against the founding vision of an NHS free at the point of need.

Dentists are abandoning the NHS because they are fed up with the broken funding model.

This leaves patients with the stark choice of finding another NHS provider, which are few and far between, or paying privately.

Dentists have been fed up for a long time that they are confined to providing the basics of dental care on the NHS.

The continuation of amalgam fillings on the NHS when many countries around the world have banned them because of health fears is a case in point.

And some treatments which are available on the NHS leave the dentist out of pocket because the remuneration is less than the cost of the materials.

What dentists and patients need is funding based on preventative treatment, promoting good oral health which would lead to less gum disease and tooth decay. And the dental system needs to be funded at an adequate level that allows patients to be treated no matter the size of their bank balance.

Labour claims it will fix this mess if it wins the next Holyrood election but the vote is still two years away and by then there may be few NHS dentists left.

The time to listen is now and the Scottish Government must take action to save the service before we lose it forever. HUMZa caN’T HaNDle TooTH – Page 2