Page 1880 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 2 May 2012
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(2) calls on the:
(a) Australian Government to accept the recommendations of the National Advisory Council on Dental Health and make a significant investment in State dental programs in the 2012-13 budget, and make this the first step towards universal Commonwealth-funded dental care for all Australians;
(b) Speaker of the ACT Legislative Assembly to write to the Federal Minister for Health and other party political spokespeople for Health advising them of paragraph (2)(a); and
(c) ACT Minister for Health to explain what reasons, in addition to a lack of funding, cause the mean waiting time for adults on ACT Health’s dental services waiting list to be 12 months.
The motion I am moving today seeks to recognise the difficulties people have in accessing dental services. Many people put off accessing dental treatment because they cannot afford it, despite it being an essential component to a person’s good health. Not receiving dental treatment impacts on a person’s overall health and wellbeing, has a major impact on issues such as nutrition and can lead to serious illnesses and conditions.
The Greens are today proposing that the Assembly, on behalf all people in the ACT, call on the federal government to reinstate dental health into Medicare. In the lead-up to next week’s commonwealth budget we are asking the federal government to phase in the inclusion of dental treatment into Medicare over five years to cover preventative and restorative dental treatment so that everybody can afford to go to the dentist.
I think Mr Hanson might be proposing some amendments, although they have not been circulated. I think they were to the effect that it is too late to lobby for this year’s budget. It is something that we need to continue lobbying for. If it is not in this year’s budget, I think it makes this motion today from the Assembly even more important because it shows how important denticare and dental treatment are to people in the ACT. If the government takes this step of funding denticare, the Greens believe that low income earners, children and younger people, pensioners and people with chronic illness should be the first to access increased dental care.
When a person’s oral health is poor, their whole health can be affected. Untreated dental decay can lead to autoimmune disease and joint pain. It can have long-term bacterial implications and a whole range of chronic disease health implications. It can also cause a very high level of pain which then impacts on areas such as diet and nutrition. Dental decay and tooth loss can also affect a person’s self-esteem, work opportunities and quality of life as people become sensitive about their appearance. The best way to combat these problems is via prevention and early intervention, particularly if people, especially from a young age, have regular dental checkups.
It was in 1973 that the commonwealth first funded a dental program for schools which was administered by the states. It was not until 1994, however, that the
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