The current status of oral health in Portugal experienced a period of many difficulties and action taken by officials from the Ministry of Health, in joint initiatives with the Order of Dentists, remain inconclusive as to the measures to provide adequate care to the citizens.
Over the past seven years, doubled the number of people who abdicated to treat their teeth by economic difficulties. Do not just launch television campaigns or speak of million of budgeted funds (many do not run), finishing everything by not translate into real gains in health.
Patients and dentists can not be condemned to the dental check. It is an open urgnte immediate overhaul of the National Oral Health. The dentist-check measure has proved increasingly ineffective as the period and manner of operation are incompatible with good oral health of young people, pregnant women and elderly people who want to cover.
For young people in many parts of the country, checks were issued only in August and the end of its validity was given this October 31. Oral diseases are not seasonal.
On the other hand, the difference between the number of checks issued and used reflects the failure of the model. The same inefficiency has been demonstrated in late payments to professionals, with more than five months of waiting, which entails enormous difficulties for the viability of clinics and offices that joined the program. The Directorate General of Health, in agreement with the current direction of the Order stipulated guidelines of the National Oral Health which undermine the dignity of dentists and tend to frustrate the best practices in treating many cases of dental disease in groups target.
It is intended that the necessary dental treatment to an oral cavity are carried out within a predetermined fixed budget, not looking at various details and the number of medical and dental acts to perform, calling into question the professional ethics and the right to health. This affront to ethics and attitude offends either the patients or professionals.
The proposals for reform that are defended by the following aspects: the integration of dentists in the SNS (National Health Service), allowing coordinate the referral of patients and monitor the evolution of oral health care, the eradication of treatments at no cost, to prepare a paytable dignified and differentiated for the different medical and dental instruments, the penalty for late payments, simplification of administrative procedures, the permanent availability of the computer system for registration of patients, the change of name (check-dentist) for reimbursement of medical / dental instrument, the proper scientific monitoring program, and the universal freedom of access and the same termination.
Fernando Guerra, Professor, University of Coimbra and candidate for president of the College of Dentists
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