IDA says government should up state scheme funding
In Ireland, a family’s average expenditure on oral health has fallen by 50 per cent in just five years. In the light of these shocking new figures, the Irish Dental Association are now urging the government to consider the funding of more state dental schemes.
The figures, produced as a result of the Central Statistics Office’s household budget survey, show that whilst families originally spent €197 on dental healthcare in 2010, the number has since dropped to €84.53 in 2016.
These figures suggest that Irish citizens are not spending money on the upkeep of their dental health, and that this would lead to a steady decline in oral health standards in the future. Fintan Hourihan, Chief executive of the Irish Dental Association, commented that he was ‘seriously concerned’ about the numbers and that this was a result of cuts to the state funding of dental health treatments and dentists.
Mr Hourihan continued to request the help of Leo Varadkar, with whom he wishes to form a cross-departmental group in order to tackle the problem of reduced spending together.
The government’s spending on dental care has now been slashed by as much as €500 million according to Mr Hourihan, who went on to suggest that this would lead to an influx of preventable oral diseases across the country. Citing dental decay and gum disease as examples of diseases increasing in number, he repeatedly called for the government to dedicate more money to state dental programmes. He finished by warning that the government should know that “prevention is better than cure”, and that oral health treatment should not be “an optional expense”.
