LESS than half of the Donegal children who were to be seen by a dentist under the school screening programme have been seen, the Irish Dental Association (IDA) has revealed.
The IDA warned that the lack of a proper public dental service model could lead to the most vulnerable children in the country missing out on early dental intervention.
In Donegal just over 7,000 children availed of the school dental screening programme last year, a 15 per cent drop from 2019.
Chief Executive of the Irish Dental Association, Fiontán Hourihan told the Donegal News that this is a result of the “grossly understaffed” HSE dental service in the county.
He stressed that there are currently only 35 active dentists in the medical card scheme in the whole of Donegal.
“The number of dentists has fallen by approximately 25 per cent, the number of eligible patients has risen by 25 per cent. So there is a huge problem and a huge shortfall,” said Mr Hourihan.
To tackle the problem the government plans to outsource public child and special needs dental care. But Mr Hourihan said outsourcing to an already understaffed and overstretched private dental system is not the answer.
“There needs to be discussion on how to improve the number of dentists but also to look at changes in the operation of the public service and the public funded dentist scheme.
“Because the current medical card scheme is completely unfit for purpose, and has been for many years,” Mr Hourihan said.
Receive quality journalism wherever you are, on any device. Keep up to date from the comfort of your own home with a digital subscription.
Any time | Any place | Anywhere
SUBSCRIBE TO CURRENT EDITION TODAY
and get access to our archive editions dating back to 2007(CLICK ON THE TITLE BELOW TO SUBSCRIBE)