New survey from Irish Dental Association shows one in six patients are waiting over 3 months for an elective appointment, while more than half of patients are being forced to wait longer than 3 months for specialist care.

The Irish Dental Association has today (4th May 2023) announced that Dr Eamon Croke has been appointed as its 100th President.

Irish Dental Association says Government must urgently focus on addressing recruitment and retention crisis across public and private dental service

Fewer than 620 Dentists are now actively participating in the medical card scheme nationally. Shortcomings in publicly funded dental services affect our most vulnerable in society including children waiting on the school screening service. Minister for Health is now asking dentists to sign up to a scheme on the “understanding” that reform is coming. • Irish Dental Association says: “We say to the Minister that hope is not a strategy, not least given how often all promises about the commencement of talks on a new scheme have been broken and no discussions have taken place in sixteen years.

Independent consultancy firm Crowe has found that dentists in private practice who are IDA members save between €955 and €2,136 per year, due to exclusive financial benefits, compared to non-members. Following an extensive review of IDA membership benefits, Crowe confirmed that “most dentists can expect to at a minimum save the cost of their membership fee and typically considerably more.”

Chair of the Irish Dental Association GP Committee, Dr Will Rymer; “Visiting your dentist at least once a year is important to ensure any dental issues are detected early. If left untreated, they could become bigger and more expensive problems later.”

Dr Clodagh McAllister of Fairview Dental, Dublin announced overall winner at Colgate Caring Dentist Awards 2022. Dr McAllister recognised for diagnosing potentially fatal liver condition in patient. Without Dr McAllister’s speedy intervention, doctors told the mother-of-two that she would have had a maximum of 12 weeks to live. In nominating Dr McAllister, her patient said: “It is because of Clodagh that my children still have a mother and my husband a wife. Clodagh saved my life.”

It was great to see dentists and team members working in the HSE meet in person again for the first time in three years. Morale and burnout are real issues for our members right now but there was little doubt that everyone who attended said it was so important to meet colleagues, share experiences and sound advice in this time of great stress within the service.

• Some parts of the country are facing backlogs of almost 10 years in relation to HSE School Dental Screening Service. • Children who should be receiving three check-ups in primary school not being seen until fourth year of secondary school. • General Anaesthetic waiting lists also running up to 2 years in some parts of the country. • Number of public-only dentists has dropped by almost a quarter (23%), from 330 in 2006 to 254 in 2022. • HSE need to hire 76 dentists immediately to bring the service back to where it was 15 years ago, says Irish Dental Association.

The Irish Dental Association says it is disappointed by the lack of specifics in Budget 2023 regarding measures to improve access to dental care.