Dental Association Doorsteps Parliament On Low Income Dental Access

The New Zealand Dental Association (NZDA) is this morning running a mobile dental clinic on Parliament’s forecourt.

The Association aims to once again highlight the need to improve access to dental care for low-income and vulnerable New Zealanders.

Last year the NZDA commissioned - at its own substantial cost - a report outlining workable solutions to improve ‘Access To Oral Health Services For Low Income Adults’. This was delivered to key politicians including the previous Minister of Health. Within the last few days it has been revealed that a Ministry of Health report, 'Adult Dental Care and Oral Health Issues', was also sent to then Minister of Health, David Clark in December 2018, and it too has not been acted upon.

“Both reports have independently come to very similar conclusions. It is clear that there is a way forward and it is entirely up to the Government – whoever that is after the election - to make this happen.

Both reports call for an increase in Work and Income emergency dental grants, and both suggest increasing the current age for subsidised dental care,” said NZDA President Dr Katie Ayers.

The NZDA also recommends that the Government trial a series of ‘demonstrators’ aimed at better targeting dental funding, including working with the Ministry of Social Development on assisting long-term unemployed to access dental care to help with work prospects.

Another suggestion is for primary dental care to work more closely with communities, citing programmes such as Healthy Families and Kāinga Whānau Ora as models of cross-agency cooperation.

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