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18 APRIL 2010. Two thirds of dentists say the number of patients they are treating has declined over the past year.
According to a new survey 35% of dentists say the number of patients has decreased a lot while another 33% claim to have seen a more moderate decline in numbers.
The decline in the number of patients comes as nearly half of the dentists surveyed said they had reduced their fees for the most common treatment items such as examinations, fillings, extractions etc.
Not surprisingly the reduction in patient numbers and fees has led to a decline in dentists' income with 72% of respondents claiming their income has declined by a quarter.
Most dentists don't see that situation improving and have a pessimistic view of the future. According to the survey 70% of respondents expect to see their income decrease further in the next 12 months.
Fintan Hourihan the Chief Executive of the Irish Dental Association said the findings highlighted the impact on patients of recent and planned cutbacks to the medical card and the PRSI schemes.
Recently we warned about the impact these cutbacks would have on patients and this survey shows that this is now happening on the ground with more and more people neglecting their dental health. We are calling on the Government to reverse cutbacks to the PRSI scheme and to provide sufficient funding for the medical card scheme in order to protect the dental health of the most vulnerable members of our society he said.
Hourihan also pointed to the difficult situation many dentists now find themselves in. Three out of four dentists have seen a 25% decline in their income and younger dentists who have invested heavily in surgeries in recent years have been hit particularly hard. Here in the IDA we have been inundated with queries from dentists about reduced working hours for staff, temporary layoffs and redundancies as they strive to stay in business. There is no doubt that the sector will see further job losses and we will be discussing the situation at our forthcoming conference in Galway in mid May.
ENDS.
Note to Editor
This survey was conducted among members (private practice) of the Irish Dental Association by Behaviour & Attitudes. A telephone survey was employed. The final sample comprised 120 interviews based on a random probability sample from the total listings of around 1,200 IDA members in private practice. All telephone interviewing was conducted at the premises of Behaviour & Attitudes in our dedicated Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) unit. Fieldwork took place in the last week of March 2010. Behaviour & Attitudes is a member of the European Society of Opinion and Market Research (ESOMAR), Association of Irish Market Research Organisations (AIMRO), and the Market Research Society (UK) and abides by the strict technical and ethical standards set down by these bodies.
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