AHHHH: Costly dental work. Source: Quest Newspapers
THOUSANDS of Queensland patients have been waiting more than five years for public dental care, new figures show.
The data, published by the Newman Government this month, show people in the Wide Bay region, Townsville, Toowoomba, Kingaroy, Logan, Redcliffe, Caboolture and Brisbane find it particularly hard to see a public dentist.
At the Hervey Bay Dental Clinic, more than 2100 people have been waiting at least 60 months for a routine check-up and dental treatment, recommended to occur within two years of making an appointment.
Further north at the Bundaberg Dental Clinic, more than 1600 people have been on the waiting list for at least five years.
At the Toowoomba Dental Clinic, the number exceeded 1200.
Dozens of patients requiring "priority one" care, deemed bad enough they are recommended to be seen within a month, have been waiting more than five months.
And hundreds of patients across the state have been waiting more than 15 months for "priority two" dental treatment, with the recommended time for them to be seen being 90 days.
Chief health officer Jeannette Young's recently released Health of Queenslanders report says there were 12,083 potentially preventable hospital stays for dental conditions in 2010-11.
Australian Dental Association Queensland president Andrew Wong called for more to be done to prevent problems, including encouraging parents to reduce children's soft drink intake.
He also called for more public dentists and to outsource public patients to private dentists.
A spokesman for Health Minister Lawrence Springborg said
he was anxious to work with the Federal Government to deliver "good outcomes" in relation to dental care.
Federal Health Minister Tanya Plibersek has announced the chronic disease dental scheme will close on December 1, to be replaced by a means-tested scheme from 2014.
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