Senator: Only 2 per cent of rural poor get dental help

In a seminar on the access people have to dental services, Senator Anusak Khongmalai said the average cost of dental services was Bt52 per head - or Bt3.1 billion per year spread over 60 million people, while the private sector's dental services per year totalled Bt5.2 billion.

The dental health survey - carried out every five years - reported that tooth decay among  children was increasing in rural areas.

 In 2007, 61 per cent of Thai threeyearolds and 57 per cent of those aged 12 suffered tooth decay, he said. In the cities, however, the incidence had clearly declined due to better access to dental services. In rural areas, children had problems with access and only two per cent were reported as receiving dental treatment.

Dental health problems were affecting people's study and work time. Some 249,000 out of the 5.8 million Thai children aged 1015 had asked for sick leave totalling 629,000 days, he said.

A major problem was the imbalance in dentist numbers. In 2007, 50 per cent of all dentists in Thailand operated in Bangkok - a ratio of one dentist per 1,203 people. In the Northeast region the ratio was one dentist per 18,540 people - a 15times difference.

This was partly due to a lack of structure and mechanism for dental services to provide management because the provincial dental health division had been dissolved, he said.

The Senate Standing Committee on Public Health proposed the Public Health Ministry set up a strategy for people's better access to dental services - establishing at least 4,500 community health stations providing dental services, and using the ministry's Geographic Information System to improve dentist numbers in rural areas, he said.

 The committee also urged for the establishment of a permanent agency to set direction and support for dental services at the provincial level - linked to the provincial health security committee to formulate a provincial public health plan.

The committee also called for the development of primary dental services at community health stations by enlarging manpower and encouraging participation by private sector and local administration organisations.