Ireland - Dental healthcare packages for children could cost up to €41.1m

By Noel Baker

Senior Reporter and Social Affairs Correspondent

The annual cost of preventive dental healthcare packages to all children under the age of 16 years could be as high as €41.1m according to the ESRI, while similar preventive dental healthcare packages for adults could cost even more.

The figures are among estimates by the Economic and Social Research Institute and provided to government, which has published its new National Oral Health Policy, Smile agus Sláinte.

Under the new policy, all children aged under 16 will receive eight oral healthcare packages including examinations, assessments, advice, prevention interventions, emergency care and referral as appropriate.

Similar packages will also be provided for medical card holders over 16 years, to be provided in a primary care setting by oral healthcare practitioners contracted by the HSE.

The ESRI estimated that the cost for the children packages would range between €26m and €41.1m a year, while those for adults would range between €6.9m and €42.8m.

According to the ESRI: "The range of estimates reflects differing assumptions about the scope of services available (e.g. allowance for extractions), eligible populations (eg relevant population for fluoride therapy) and usage frequency (e.g. annual vs. biennial oral examinations)."

According to the government, the new policy will have a particular focus on improved oral health services for vulnerable groups, including those in nursing and residential homes, with the local dentist the first point of contact.

It will also include a full review of education and training in the dental profession, oral health promotion programmes for the entire population and the maintenance of the programme of water fluoridation.

It comes as the HSE said an audit of medical files of 7,500 children is nearing completion amid concerns that their teeth were permanently damaged due to a lack of follow-up orthodontic care in previous decades.

RTE's PrimeTime programme revealed this week that children at the end of the 1990s and into the following decade had compromised dental care after a reduction in staff in regional orthodontic teams at that time.

Speaking on RTE's Morning Ireland programme Ted McNamara, who was the first consult orthodontist to be appointed in the country and who worked on the scheme, said: "The children were just left, there was no follow-up."

That lack of follow-up treatment was revealed in a still-unpublished HSE report from 2015 into the issue, and the HSE said following completion of the audit a serious incident management team will consider if patients need to be recalled.