Now Reading: Call for Affordable Dental Care in Public Healthcare Sector
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Call for Affordable Dental Care in Public Healthcare Sector
Rapid Summary
- Kerala’s public dental care services are significantly underprovided, despite the state’s robust healthcare reputation.
- The state has around 35,000 registered dental practitioners, with a dentist-to-population ratio of 1:2,200 compared to WHO’s recommended 1:7,500.
- There are only 150 dental surgeons in kerala’s State Health Services; the majority of dentists practice privately in urban areas.
- Community health centres (CHCs) largely lack adequate dental staff; only 42 out of 257 CHCs have a designated dental surgeon despite aardram Mission’s provisions from 2021.
- Dental procedure costs in private clinics far exceed those at government hospitals. For exmaple:
– Root canal treatment costs ₹200 at taluk hospitals but ₹3,000-₹6,000 or more privately.
– Tooth extraction is ₹30 at CHCs versus ₹500-₹1,000 privately.
– Dentures cost approximately ₹520 publicly and ₹18,000-₹25,000 privately.
- Overcrowding persists in government hospitals due to high demand for affordable treatments. Waiting times for procedures like root canal treatment can extend up to six months due to understaffing and resource shortages.
- Concerns persist about oral health due to increasing incidences of oral cancer and lack of baseline public health data on oral diseases in Kerala.
- No notable government recruitment has occurred recently:
– Assistant Dental Surgeon posts have stagnated at just 135 positions for nine years; there are no current vacancies despite demand exceeding existing capacity as the last PSC exam held November 2020.
Indian Opinion Analysis
Kerala’s inadequate public sector provisioning for essential dental care contrasts sharply with its broader reputation as a leader in affordable healthcare services. while the state boasts an above-standard dentist-to-population ratio overall (largely as of private practitioners), it fails to extend equitable access by strengthening rural and peripheral service points within its public system.
The stark disparity between procedure costs highlights affordability gaps that push economically disadvantaged patients toward crowded government hospitals already burdened by long waiting lists. This poses challenges not only as an equity issue but also risks creating barriers that negatively affect preventive and timely interventions-especially considering worrying trends such as non-tobacco-related oral cancers rising without adequate monitoring frameworks.
from an employment perspective-the surplus workforce among graduating dentists alongside stagnant job creation reflects systemic inefficiency that may exacerbate professional instability within dentistry while compounding service delivery gaps across underserved regions.
Policy interventions prioritizing expansion of posts within phcs/CHCs via hiring initiatives could alleviate patient load imbalance while also addressing workforce concerns. Timely execution on pending proposals as 2018-such as creating new assistant surgeon roles-may help mitigate overcrowding trends seen today and lay groundwork necessary for robust regional outreach targeting preventative care models urgently needed now per overdue mission outcomes like Aardram mandates lacking scale presently visible operationally yet aligned expected good Gov decorum model
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