Advocacy

Key election issues

Access to general anaesthetic services for dental care

Victorian dentists, and particularly paediatric and special needs specialists, are having increasing difficulty in accessing general anaesthetic services for their patients. This has been a long standing issue as the funding to hospitals for dental procedures is significantly less than for other procedures. This has been exacerbated recently with some private hospitals and day facilities ceasing or restricting access for dental cases, and private hospitals entering arrangements with the Victorian government to provide care to public patients which have effectively frozen out dental providers.

Public dental workforce

Victorian public sector dentists are paid on average 22% less than their counterparts interstate, but with larger gaps for new graduate dentists – 28% less than South Australia, 30% less than Queensland and 33% less than Tasmania. A dentist working in the Victorian public dental system would have to work for four years to get the same starting salary as a new graduate in NSW, five years to get the same starting salary as a new graduate in Queensland, South Australia or Western Australia and six years to get the same starting salary as a new graduate in Tasmania.

There is an urgent requirement for the Victorian government to address the remuneration for public sector dentists with an aim to achieve parity with other states.

Dental research funding

• Australia only allocates 0.23 per cent of research funding to oral health research
• Dental expenditure represents around 4.7 per cent of total health expenditure
• The allocation of dental research funding is disproportionate to the burden of oral health disease
• Increasing dental research funding has the potential to improve oral health and well-being

During 2019–20, an estimated $6.7 billion was spent on health and medical research, with the Australian Government contributing $5.3 billion. Yet in 2018 only $3.3 million was invested by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) on research into orofacial diseases.

The amount of NHMRC funding (0.23 per cent) allocated to oral health research is disproportionate to the cost and burden of oral diseases. Australia spent $202 billion on health goods and services in 2019–20, with $9.5 billion spent on dental services (4.7 per cent of total health expenditure). The estimated avoidable costs of poor oral health to Australia exceeds $818 million per year, with the majority of dental disease preventable.

In the USA the National Institute of Health provided $485 million to fund oral health research through the National Institute of Dental/Craniofacial Research in 2021 representing 1.1 per cent of total research Funding

A greater investment in dental research has the potential to improve oral health, well-being and quality of life, and significantly reduce health expenditure.

Oral health promotion and prevention

Health expenditure is currently primarily allocated to the treatment of established illness and
disease. The National Preventive Health Strategy 2020-2030 recommends that at least 5% of health budgets should be allocated to measures focused on primary prevention by 2030. It is essential that the funding is focused to primary prevention measures that reduce risk factors for chronic disease.

This should include the expansion of water fluoridation in Victoria to communities of greater than 1000 residents. Currently around 90% of Victorians have access to fluoridated drinking water, but there are many people living in regional and rural areas that are being denied the benefits of water fluoridation.