Orthodontic service ‘on the verge of collapse’

ORTHODONTIC treatment in some areas is on “the verge of collapse” and children are at risk of being damaged because dentists training to be orthodontists are not being replaced.

Consultant Orthodontist Dr Ian O’Dowling says he has been forced to close the five-year waiting list in Cork and Kerry, and is hanging on a protracted recruitment process set up to replace departing dentists.

He says he was delighted that this week two dentists were able to take up places at the Cork Dental School, but he has had no time to find new staff to absorb the 1,000 orthodontic patients they had on their books.

Mr O’Dowling expressed anger that the Health Service Executive will not act to appoint local dentists, who would be available to the orthodontic service, or allow the trainees to continue to work across the Southern Health Board.

“There are people on their [the departing dentists’] books that have not got a further appointments and there is nothing we can do. There are kids at risk of being damaged because they are not going to get treatment.

“The HSE seems reluctant to appoint anybody to the posts, they say they will advertise for a new orthodontist, but that is about as useful as hole in the head when we need people to tackle the problem now.

“Since the arrival of the HSE, there are significant problems in the delivery of [orthodontic services]. Nobody seems to know what they are doing and nobody seems to have an idea what orthodontics is about.”

The Cork Dental School was set up to increase the number of people being trained in the sector, because it was widely acknowledged that there was insufficient personnel to manage the long-standing backlogs in orthodontic care.

However, in the past year, the failure to fill a specialist team in the Dublin Dental School has forced it to cancel its post-graduate orthodontic training programme, which its Chief Executive Brian Murray says is part of a “vicious circle.”

In effect, he says that without a sufficient amount of people coming through training schools it becomes of self-perpetuating problem of staff shortages in dental care.

He said: “Right around the world this is a problem and the reason is obvious: that the cost of treating patients is so high that the lure of the private sector is very big and it is very difficult to attract academic staff.

“This is similar for a lot of specialist services. It poses a particular challenge to universities and accreditation bodies. But if you are not training enough people then it becomes a vicious circle.”

Mr Murray says that it hopes to have the programme back up and running next September, but, in the meantime, Cork has been left to shoulder the burden.

The HSE South agrees that the problems reflect a national shortage of specialist personnel but says it will work to appoint new members to the Cork team “as soon as possible.”