Dental schemes cuts will not be reversed, says Harney

REDUCTIONS IN funding to dental schemes will not be reversed in the budget, Minister for Health Mary Harney has said.

“Those reductions will not be reversed and cannot be reversed. They have to continue because we do not have the resources we wish to have,” Ms Harney said yesterday.

She denied the cuts had resulted in some dentists being forced to close their practices. “I don’t accept that there’s anybody closing their business because of reductions in public spending. There may be other issues that affect people’s capacity to stay in business, perhaps they are overmortgaged or whatever,” she said.

The budget cut benefits under the PRSI dental treatment scheme while restrictions were imposed on the medical card dental scheme in April. “The reality is we will spend this year what we spent in 2008. Nobody could convince me that in the Ireland of 2010 a budget of 2008 would not be sufficient,” Ms Harney added.

She also warned that health cuts in the forthcoming budget would be “considerable”.

Next year would be “even tougher” than this year because challenges confronting the health system in working within the financial envelope will be “even greater”, she said.

Her department would make a “major contribution” to the fiscal adjustment needed, she said. Every possible step had to be taken to live within budgets while minimising the impact on patient services, she said.

Ms Harney said there would be no additional money given to HSE West. She reiterated that there had been no budget cut in the region and it was expected to deliver within its allocation.

On Tuesday HSE West announced that it would have to impose cuts of almost €50 million by the end of the year.

The HSE West would “have to learn to live within their budget as in every other region”, Ms Harney said. There was “no doubt” that there would be “no additional money” given to the region, she said.

The Minister was speaking at Dublin Dental University Hospital as part of mouth, head and neck cancer awareness day.

More than 1,300 people were provided with free check-ups for the disease at the Dublin hospital, with an additional 700 people examined at Cork Dental Hospital.

A further 1,000 people could not be seen due to the level of demand but will be invited for a checkup.

A queue formed at the Dublin dental hospital at 6.45am and the doors opened an hour early to cope with the interest.

Mouth, head and neck cancers kill more people then cervical cancer or Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Prof June Nunn of Dublin Dental School and hospital said.

The main risk factors for mouth, head and neck cancers were drinking alcohol and smoking and a combination of both was “lethal”.

Three people die from mouth head and neck cancers in Ireland every week and there are 400 new cases of the cancers detected each year.