Dentist to get €1.7m in waiting list scheme

A PRIVATE orthodontist contracted to the Government’s treatment purchase scheme stands to earn €1.7 million in two years, while an entire public dental health department has an annual budget of €1.5m.

The Southern Health Board (SHB) is at an advanced stage of negotiations to secure a private practitioner to treat patients on its public orthodontic waiting list, with almost 3,927 people awaiting treatment and a further 2,932 awaiting assessment.

A budget of €720,000 has been set aside in the first year for the private practitioner for the treatment of 246 public patients.

Consultant orthodontist Ian O’Dowling, head of the SHB’s public orthodontic services, said this payment will cover the orthodontist’s first year’s work and that a further 1m will be allocated for his second year.

He dismissed the SHB’s claim that the €720,000 was a one-off allocation and the contract with the orthodontist would be terminated when the 246 patients had been treated.

“The deal won’t go through unless the orthodontist involved is guaranteed that he can bring his patient numbers up to 500 in his second year. For that, he will get another 1m.”

Private orthodontists charge almost €3,000 per patient.

Mr O’Dowling is expected to run his dental clinic, at St Finbarr’s Hospital in Cork, where 2,900 patients are under treatment, on an annual budget of €1,475,904.

“That has to cover my salary, seven dentists, secretaries, a radiographer, about 25 staff in all, as well as investing in equipment. If we got €1.7m we could make big inroads on the waiting lists. It makes no sense. On the one hand, money is being cut back from the health boards and on the other, this type of squandering is taking place.”

Mr O’Dowling said half a day’s work per month under the treatment purchase scheme would earn him his entire annual salary working as a consultant for the SHB.

A Department of Health spokesperson was unable to say how many private orthodontists would be contracted in each health board to treat public patients under the treatment purchase scheme, which has funding of 5m.

“Not all the figures are in yet and it would be pre-emptive to give out numbers until the process is completed,” she said. The initiative was short-term, she added, designed to cut waiting lists.

Mr O’Dowling said the long-term nature of orthodontic treatment meant it would be extremely difficult to row back on such a scheme once in place.

Consultant orthodontist for the Mid-Western Health Board, Ted McNamara, said contracting private orthodontists to treat public patients would cost them staff in the public system, because of the huge salary difference. Specialist orthodontists in the public service earn in the region of €97,000.

“If staff leave our units to avail of this type of contract, our patients will be left high and dry, and it is happening. One of my staff has decided to take up the treatment purchase scheme part-time and will only be with me for half a week.”

Both Mr McNamara and Mr O’Dowling supervise dentists who carry out orthodontic work within the public service, on health board salaries.

Both believe a regional training programme, which would allow them train public dentists to orthodontic level, is the way to tackling waiting lists.