Australian Dentist Happy To Make Exceptions For Struggling Patients
An Australian dentist has been doing her bit to help patients struggling to afford dental care by accepting unusual payments; Nancy Saunders-Clay has been so distressed by some of her patient’s stories that she has accepted home-kill and avocados as payment for treatment.
Dr Saunders-Clay, from Taree, said that some patients are in such desperate situations that she takes anything they can give her; one man could not afford the total cost of root canal treatment so he settled the deficit by bringing in a large bag of avocadoes. Dr Saunders-Clay also treated a young girl with a tooth abscess free of charge, but her father who was a farmer returned to the surgery the next day carrying half a cow to pay for the treatment.
Dr Saunders-Clay said that many patients struggle to afford treatment and this means that they often choose the cheapest option, rather than the treatment they would prefer. Many opt to have teeth extracted rather than filled or treated using root canal therapy, for example, purely because it is cheaper and around a third of Australians delay having treatment due to cost.
According to John Falzon, chief executive of the St Vincent de Paul Society, governments have neglected oral health for far too long and this has caused standards of dental health to fall and thousands of people to go without the treatment they need.
Dr Falzon added that the Government’s proposals to bring in a new dental scheme to improve access to dental care is long overdue and urged ministers to follow through on their promises.
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