Both sides called to stop the dental rot

FOURTEEN health and social groups have called on both parties to pledge to improve the "decaying" state of the dental system. 

FOURTEEN health and social groups have called on both parties to pledge to improve the "decaying" state of the dental system.

The groups are warning that long waiting lists mean over 7 million Australians are missing out on dental care.

Launching its campaign "Stop the Rot", the newly minted National Oral Health Alliance -- a body that includes the Australian Council of Social Service, the Australian Dental Association and Australian Health Care Reform Alliance -- says more than a third of Australians are delaying or avoiding dental treatment because they cannot afford it.

The push marks an attempt to put dentistry on the election's health agenda, after largely disappearing from Labor's program of reforms to public hospitals and GP services.

The National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission, which last year recommended a scheme that would give all Australians subsidised access to dentists -- at a cost of $3.7 billion per year. The federal government rejected the recommendation in the May budget, indicating the cost was too high.

Only the Greens have backed a national, universal dental care scheme operating as part of Medicare, while Labor remains committed to its smaller-scale Commonwealth Dental Health Scheme that would increase funding for public dental clinics.

This policy is opposed by the Coalition and remains stuck in the Senate.

Dental therapist Julie Satur, executive member of the Australian Dental and Oral Health Therapists Association and a spokeswoman for the new Alliance, said dental care "has been priced out of most people's budgets" and a comprehensive reform policy was "overdue".

AHHA executive director Prue Power said the Greens had "left the major parties behind on this crucial health issue".