My wife and I are semi-retired. We are finding the cost of dental care and private medical increasingly prohibitive.

My wife had an abscess on her wisdom tooth. She was in excruciating pain. She was told to ask for an emergency appointment at the dental Hospital. They could give her an appointment in 12 months time. That was their EMERGENCY waiting list.
It took a week to see a local dentist, and that was in his lunch hour, which his receptionist says he nearly always works though with emergency appointments.

He is a lovely, truly Christian man ( and half the price of many) but I wonder how long he can keep up the pace.

The state of dental Health in Australia has reached crisis stage. Far more even than our appalling Mental Health System. Is this what we do with a 10 billion dollar budget surplice?

This up-coming programme on the ABC prompted me to write:
BAD TEETH, BAD ECONOMICS
Reporter, Wendy Carlisle.
About 30,000 hospital admissions every year are for dental problems. The
main reason children under five get admitted to hospital is teeth
troubles. And now science indicates that bad teeth and gums affects the
whole body, and can lead to heart disease. The state of dentistry is
costing us plenty.

Sunday 22nd April at 9:10 am
Tuesday 24th April at 7:10 pm
Wednesday 25th April at 4:00 am

Michael2, thank you for this discussion.
Coincidentally, I received the link to this program from a friend and just listened to it- very interesting and necessary to give attention to.

This is the link to the background briefing if others want to listen: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/backgroundbriefing/stories/2007/1901441.htm

For your information, there has been a discussion on dental health late last year; you might find it interesting to read the comments here:
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=297

It is sickening that in a wealthy country like Australia, dental health is not included in our medicare system and people like your wife are not being treated but left in pain. Dental health is (or should be!) a health issue, obviously.

Yes, 30,000 hospital admissions that could have been prevented if only we had a working dental health system. Shame!

People are extracting their own teeth or have to resort to garage dentistery because of our government's neglectance. Shame!

We (as discussed in the background briefing) need to look at the mouth as part of our body, no different from other parts of our body and which are looked after by Medicare.

You are right to call this system in Australia appalling.

If we had a good, properly working, and free preventative dental care system in Australia, Medicare wouldn't have to pay for fixing the serious health problems that are caused by bad teeth and the waiting lists in hospitals would be reduced as well.

I believe it's not wrong to say that Australia's dental health system is the worst of all the modern, wealthy Western countries in the world.

Something we should all be ashamed of.

Michael2
Thank You For Opening this thread.
Good On you for putting it up on OLO.
Your wife may be better off to come in by ship next time to the so called terrible imigration shelters.
Dental and other health delivered while we all wait.
Perhaps the do gooders could look at that.
I recall at one stage a lady wrote it was a ten year wait for Dental In Tassi.
Do not be fooled.
Just remember however most of this has been operated around Australia under "Labour State Governments".

I hope your wife is feeling much better.