Children face further delays over failure to fill dental jobs

CHILDREN awaiting specialist dental treatment in the health board area with the largest waiting list face further delays after a consultant orthodontist declined a job offer.

More than 7,000 children are awaiting either orthodontic assessment or treatment in the Southern Health Board area but efforts to attract consultants to work in Cork and Kerry have failed. The Cork position, to cover the north Cork/north Lee area, where 1,813 children are awaiting assessment and a further 1,206 are on a treatment waiting list, was advertised two years ago, but after protracted negotiations, the successful candidate declined to take up the post. In Kerry, no eligible candidate was found. The shortage of orthodontists is compounded by a block on the Cork Dental School training dentists to orthodontic level until a Professor of Orthodontics is appointed. The post has been offered to a candidate and once he is in situ, training at the school can recommence. The school lost its training accreditation in 1999 following a visit from the London-based Royal College of Surgeons.

Consultant orthodontist and head of orthodontics in the SHB, Ian O’Dowling, said the delay in appointing an orthodontist had meant further delays in assessing children. “If you’re told somebody new is going to start, then you are not going to take on new patients in the area that he will be dealing with, because the average treatment time is two years.

“This means that I have held back on treating a number of patients over the past year in anticipation of the new consultant’s arrival. In some cases, treatment has probably been delayed by a year. The fact that the new consultant has declined the post will further diminish our ability to significantly reduce waiting lists.”

Mr O’Dowling said poor pay and conditions within the SHB were not conducive to attracting candidates. “There are a lot of pressures placed on you, and working as a private consultant under the National Treatment Purchase Fund is far more lucrative. A SHB-employed specialist orthodontist is paid in the region of €100,000 to treat 250 patients annually. He can earn up to €750,000 to treat the same number under the NTPF.”

A statement from the SHB said it had engaged a private orthodontist to treat 246 patients at a cost of €720,000. It confirmed it had experienced difficulties in recruiting consultant orthodontics for treatment of public patients.

Fine Gael TD Dave Stanton said the SHB was making little progress in addressing its orthodontic waiting list problem. “Its failure to appoint extra staff means more and more people, tired of being on waiting lists, are forced into seeking private treatment at huge cost to themselves. Parents are willing to take out loans if it means their children are suffering from low self-esteem because of dental problems.”