One in four dentists in Singapore work in Public Sector

02 Aug 2006, Today

Question

Name of the Person: Leong Sze Hian

One in four dentists in Singapore work in Public Sector

I REFER to the National Dental Centre's (NDC) reply, "Patients in pain get seen to more quickly" (July 24) and the Ministry of Health's (MOH) reply, "Dental patients do have choices" (July 22). 

The former states that "patients who are in pain can simply walk in to seek treatment at the NDC without an appointment". It fails to mention that those who go directly to the NDC without an appointment because they are in pain do not get the subsidised rates, and will have to pay private consultation rates. 

According to the NDC's website, you will be accorded private paying status when you are self-referred or if you walk in without any prior referral. To qualify for subsidised rates, you need to be referred and must already be receiving subsidised treatment from the following: polyclinics, restructured and government hospitals, the Ministry of Defence and the School Dental Service. 

The minimum charges for firsttime private rate patients range between $67 and $87 (before GST). 

The MOH's reply states that "although appointments may be in three to six months' time, the waiting time is still well within acceptable standards of dental care". 

I would like to ask whose "acceptable standards of dental care" are upheld? Are they the MOH's acceptable standards or the Singapore Dental Association's (SDA)? 

According to the SDA's Guideline of Fees, payment for a normal consultation is $45. More complicated treatments cost $470 upwards. 

In contrast, dental polyclinics' charges for a normal consultation range from $12 to $20.50 for adult Singapore citizens, and from $6 to $10.50 for children and the elderly. 

Of the 3.9 million polyclinic attendances in a year, how many are for dental services? 

If the 113,646 households with a monthly income below $1,500, and the 106,384 households with no working persons have an average of four family members, each visiting the dental polyclinics once a year, there would be a total of 880,120 dental polyclinic attendances per year. 

I understand that out of 18 polyclinics in Singapore, only 10 offer dental services. Since "there is no shortage of dentists in Singapore with our dentist-population ratio of 1:2,500 being comparable or better than some of the developed countries", why are we not employing more dentists in the public sector polyclinics? 

Reply

Reply from MOH 

In "More Dentists for Polyclinics" (TDY, 2 Aug), Mr Leong Sze Hian suggested that the public sector should employ more dentists so as to reduce waiting time. 

Singapore is well served by dentists. Currently, there is one dentist for every 2500 Singaporeans. Among the 1355 dentists here, almost one in four work in the public sector. 

Dentists in the public sector serve in hospitals and polyclinics to provide good and affordable dental care to lower income Singaporeans. Out of the 18 polyclinics, 10 provide dental services. Last year, they served about 100,000 dental patients. 

In addition, under the Primary Care Partnership Scheme, needy Singaporeans can seek treatment at participating private dental clinics at subsidized polyclinic rates. More than 200 private dental clinics participate in this Scheme. 

Dental care requires regular visits to dentists. In dentistry, waiting time for such routine dental care of 3 - 6 months as experienced in polyclinics is well within international practices. Emergency dental care at subsidized rate is readily available at the hospitals and polyclinics to patients who require it. 

We emphasize prevention in the public dental sector. Thus, we provide free dental health care at schools, to inculcate in young Singaporeans the habit of good oral health. Much dental problems of adults are preventable if sound oral health hygiene learnt in schools continues. 

Mr Leong noted that walk-in patients to the National Dental Centre (NDC) are not subsidised. This is because the NDC is a tertiary referral centre. Its walk-in charges for non-emergency cases are set to ensure that subsidised tertiary dental services are optimally used.