Not a single dentist in Drogheda providing care under the DTSS
Local Sinn Féin TD Imelda Munster has repeated her calls for the government to urgently fix the problems in the Dental Treatment Services Scheme (DTSS) which is supposed to fund dental services to medical card holders but is failing to do so.
Speaking after a meeting she held with representatives of the Irish Dental Association in Louth, Deputy Munster said that the public dental services have to all intents and purposes collapsed across the state and the government is showing no urgency in trying to resolve the issue.
“There isn’t a single dentist in Drogheda providing care under the DTSS at the moment, and the scheme has been haemorrhaging dentists for well over a year” she said.
“Twenty-one dentists have left the scheme in county Louth alone in the last two years and the situation is replicated right across the state.
“We also have 100,000 children in this state currently waiting for dental check-ups, between first class check-ups and sixth class check-ups. This is an obscene number. 5,000 of these children are in Louth and 6,000 are in Meath.
“The Irish Dental Association members who met with me told me that they had a meeting with the Department and the HSE on March the 2nd , but they are not scheduled to meet again until June. This shows a total lack of urgency on the government’s part.
“Restrictions have been put on treatment, including the removal of scale and polish and other basic treatments. These issues need to be resolved.
“People are suffering because of a lack of basic dental care and it’s frankly disgraceful that this has been allowed to happen and that the government isn’t taking any urgent steps to resolve it.”
