Health Reform has sited Oral Health and prevention as an important part of General Health. However treatment still overshadows prevention.

Tooth decay is the most common disease affecting over 11 million Australians each year, yet decay is easy to prevent and could be a forerunner of more interest in prevention.

All cavities occur from acid demineralisation where food is left on teeth after eating and saliva or fluoride toothpaste have no access to neutralise acid and remineralise demineralised tooth particularly inside pits and fissures on chewing surfaces where brushing also
cannot reach.

Supertooth and Good Food Friends website www.supertoothndk.org has been developed to help individuals develop skills to prevent tooth decay and gives much more information .

This person doesn't appear to contribute to his own threads and leaves me wondering whether he is just sponging in his own interests. If that is the case, I think that it is appropriate for him declare accordingly.

I withdraw my 2c and will flip else where.

Doctors need to remember that they are only a part of the health system, not the health system. As much as they might not like it, they can do very little on their own. We rely on many for a efficient health system. Most people do not enter a hospital during their lifetime but use many other health facilities. We need a good public system to meet the needs of the community. We must remember that doctors have their own agendas, which can conflict with the public good. This is true for all operatives in the health system. A good health system is very complicated, not just doctors and hospitals.

Tanveer,
A very disappointing article from you.

Having lived in Lamming's electorate and witnessed his brand of exaggerated self promotional (religious) politics, he is hardly a poster boy for politicians. Let alone Doctors in general. His utterances in the local paper etc verge on fantasy and or narcissism.

Neither is his record both in and out of parliament that flash. RU486, his interference in state/council issues were ludicrous. His handling of the investigation into his expenditures turned into a legal fest resulting in less than unequivocal endorsement of his innocence merely 'there was insufficient evidence to sustain a prosecution.' Oh yes, he got back with less than 100 votes.'

Not withstanding I'm yet to be convinced that any specialist field professional is beneficial in a parliamentary sense and depends on the individual i.e. there is a huge difference between running a health system and a practice.A bit like a mechanic running a Ford or GMH. The skill set and preferred prerequisite experience is different.

There has been as many medicos flop in their health portfolios as politicians generally.

A bit like the labor poli who for his fist 34 speeches regardless of the topic always claimed inside knowledge because he was a ex-policeman.

I am, however, in favour of politicians requiring tertiary training in being a politician with specialties like any other professional discipline.
It would be far better than the rabble that infest our parliaments currently.

Mumm, I wonder how many dentists are politicans, or Psyhios, Dieticans, OT, Speech Pathologists, Pharmacists, radiographers, or nurses?

There is a lot of truth in the fact that poor dental care contributes to poor health.

It is extremely risky doing cardiac surgery on someone who has dental caries. The risk of infection increases dramatically.

<At a time when health spending threatens to strangle our national accounts>

That is pure scare mongering with inflated figures.

A large part of the problem is that after decades of underfunding, a lot of money needs to be spent on infrastructure to bring it up to standard.(State governments are to blame for this)

The second problem is that someone opened the flood gates on increasing the population, and there are risks associated with this, such as the increase in TB.

a collison course has been set. lack of facilties and staff, meets an increased population and politicans make soothing noises, as the titanic sinks.

Take the RCH for example, the hospital was refurbished, then the decision made to build a new one. What a waste of money, yet is has happened time time again where hospitals or units are refurbished and then are closed when newer premises are built.

There is a basic problem with this whole discussion on "health care reform" and that relates to the definition of WHAT HEALTH CARE IS FOR ? There seems to be an obvious answer, namely something like "we want the full resources of medical, surgical, and pharmaceutical science to be available to us for any deviation from physical or psychological well–being and these resources to be available to each and every one of us at an affordable cost, or free if we are indigent". If this be the agreed goal then ultimately the entire GDP will be spent on health care. You will have noted that the State is expected to compensate the providers at a rate essentially determined by them. Vide the opthalmic surgeons and cataract surgery. "Reform" of the present system is quite impossible unless some limit is placed on what can be spent by whom, on whom, and for what purpose.

You will also note, as some have here, that doctors are but part of the health system and their virtually uncontrolled recompense shortchanges significantly other vital members of the health delivery service.Unless these, and a number of other problems are accepted, and some compromise sought, any thought of "Health Reform" can only be political posturing, and creation of a tiered system of care.