Children in regional area face painful delays with limited options

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Children from regional areas are being forced to wait months and travel thousands of kilometres for urgent dental care. Fewer private hospitals are offering the procedures and that's causing public waiting lists to blow out.

Transcript

00:00She might be smiling now, but four-year-old Mia van Leeuwen from Biloela in central Queensland

00:08suffered severe toothache for three months.

00:10She was in pain.

00:11She couldn't eat properly or brush her teeth.

00:14It caused great discomfort to her and it was hard to get her to brush her teeth.

00:18Before having dental crowns implanted under general anaesthetic in hospital, her family's

00:23only option was to travel 400 kilometres to Harvey Bay.

00:27It's massive because we have no family support, so it means that both Sam and I have to take

00:31time off our jobs and stay for three days just to get the treatment done for Mia.

00:38Dr Tim Keyes says he's the only private paediatric dentist north of the Sunshine Coast.

00:44We've got patients that have flown down from Darwin, from Cairns, they drive for example

00:49from Biloela, and this is quite a common occurrence.

00:52Dentists say hospitals are cutting back on oral services.

00:56So the access issue that we see now, we're actually at a crisis point.

00:59Day hospitals say funding models used by insurers puts further pressure on the system.

01:05A procedure that might take five minutes or ten minutes, a very simple procedure, compared

01:11to one that could take four or five hours, they're paid exactly the same.

01:15Dentists have renewed calls to have general anaesthetic covered by the Child Dental Benefit

01:19Scheme, but accessibility remains a problem due to hospital lists and overcrowding.

01:24Mia's family says children shouldn't have to wait.

01:27I believe that dentistry should be funded in some way, because for many people it's

01:33out of reach.

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