Public dentists to vote on protest action over cuts

PUBLIC DENTISTS are to be balloted in the coming weeks on taking protest action if the Health Service Executive (HSE) makes further cutbacks to the sector.

The decision to ballot members was taken yesterday by the national committee of the Public Dental Surgeons Group of the Irish Dental Association in an emergency session at the group’s annual seminar in Wexford.

Public dental surgeons are employed by the HSE to provide free dental services to vulnerable adults and school children.

The service mainly focuses on special needs patients, children of medical card holders and children in disadvantaged schools.

The group said protest action “up to and including appropriate industrial action” would be taken if the HSE made unilateral changes to their terms and conditions of employment or undermined the standard of care available to patients.

The group said cutbacks meant that vacancies were not being filled and more and more dental surgeons were leaving the service due to the difficult working conditions.

Incoming president of the Public Dental Surgeons Group, Dr Jane Renehan, said dentists had been forced to ballot their members because of the failure of the HSE to respond reasonably to their requests for consultation and co-operation.“We can no longer stand by while our patients are subjected to intolerable delays and pain due to the inadequate resourcing of this service,” she said.

“We intend to stand up, not for ourselves, but for our marginalised patients and ensure that a spotlight is shone on the problems which HSE indifference is causing them.” Dr Renehan said there was “a crisis” in the delivery of basic dental services to children and adults with special needs.She blamed staffing and resource shortages in the service for “commonplace” delays of over a year for special needs patients seeking treatment.

“I would suggest we are employing less than half of the public dental surgeons we need. . . There are fewer than 200 full-time equivalent dental surgeons employed in the public service, according to the group.

“This is a little more than half the target of 350 whole-time equivalent employees identified as necessary in 1999, when the population was significantly smaller.”