Children wait for treatment while dental specialists row

TURF wars among dental specialists are still ongoing a year after the Department of Health was ordered to sort out the problem.

The long-running faction fighting among orthodontists is hampering the delivery of specialist dental services to children.

At present, children can be waiting up to five years for treatment if they are lucky enough to be put on a waiting list and yesterday it was alleged that waiting list figures were being massaged.

Last year, the Oireachtas Health Committee recommended an independent arbitrator be appointed to resolve the dispute centring on methods of training dentists to orthodontic level.

But yesterday, the committee heard that the dispute had not been sorted out and relations were still strained.

On the plus side, Oireachtas Health Committee chairman Batt O'Keeffe said he understood that a professor of orthodontics will be appointed at Cork University Hospital over the summer.

This will enable the Cork Dental School to be recognised as an orthodontics training school. The appointment is also expected to result in the construction of a large orthodontic unit and support facilities.

The Department of Health said the waiting times for children awaiting orthodontic treatment was improving as 200 extra children are being taken on for treatment every month.

At present, 20,200 children are receiving orthodontic treatment, up from 16,100 in November 2001. Also, 20 new orthodontists, contracted to the health boards, are in training in Ireland and Britain.

According to Department of Health assistant secretary Tom Mooney there are almost 9,400 children assessed and awaiting treatment and another 12,000 on the waiting list for assessment.

But Mr O'Keeffe said he was concerned that guidelines on referral for treatment were being adhered to in some health board areas but not in others, so children who should be receiving treatment were in fact not getting it.

"I think it is very unsatisfactory that we have allowed it to develop, that consultants can be arbitrary in their decision-making and yet guidelines have been set and they are not sticking to them," he said.

At a meeting of the committee yesterday, Fianna Fáil TD Dr Jimmy Devins said the waiting list figures were being massaged as there were children who should be treated not getting treatment.

But Mr Mooney denied the figures were being massaged, saying they were the official numbers coming from consultants around the country.