Dental association lays out recommendations for federal government, including aged care scheme

In the Hunter New England alone, more than 15,000 adults are awaiting assessment and more than 5000 require treatment, while almost 1000 children need treatment.

ADA NSW president Dr Michael Jonas, who is based in Tamworth, said NSW Health's hands are largely tied, as it relies on funding allocations from the federal government.

"One of the prime issues is the fact that funding from the federal government to state government to fund public dental health programs is handed out annually, which makes it almost impossible for the NSW Department of Health to plan long-term oral health strategies," he said.

Dr Jonas said the last time a significant change was made to the industry was under Julia Gillard's Labor government in 2012, when the Child Dental Benefit Schedule was announced.

However, that program has not worked out as well as Dr Jonas would have hoped, with the fully-funded scheme only having roughly a 40 per cent uptake.

Regardless of who comes out on top in next Saturday's election, he wants to see better promotion of that service, and a similar program set up for older Australians.

"While children have to be able to qualify for it, the therapies are pretty complete and they really help outcomes for children, so that hasn't been pushed enough," he said.

"While on federal funding, we need to start thinking long and hard about a similar scheme for people in residential aged care, so we'd have a child dental benefit scheme and we'd have a seniors' dental benefit scheme.

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"So people who are confined to residential care can have their oral needs taken care of so they can eat, because if they can eat they survive so much better.

"There's been some horror stories about people being just totally ignored with no teeth and decayed teeth and abscess teeth and all those sorts of things, and there's no one there to sort them out."

Work has already been done by the University of Sydney to show how large-scale preventative programs can be run, which has helped ADA NSW establish economical modelling.

Stopping oral health problems before they occur is crucial, as they can lead to long-term health impacts including obesity issues, heart problems, diabetes and kidney conditions.

Dr Jonas said one of the biggest issues still facing the industry is that oral health is not included as part of Medicare.

"You can go to the hospital and get anything from dandruff to an ingrown toenail dealt with on Medicare, but you can't for your oral health," he said.

Among the dental association's other recommendations to the government are rebates for tele-dentistry services to improve access to diagnostic and specialist oral health care, costing $2.31 million, and support and development of the Indigenous oral health workforce, costing $5 million over five years.

It's also calling for adequate resources in regional communities; continuing to allocate a percentage of places to Indigenous or rural students for training programs; including dental practitioners in HECS; and providing incentives to bring dentists to the bush.

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