Dental Shortage Contributes to Increased Levels of DIY Dentistry in Rural Australia
A shortage of dentists is contributing to increased levels of DIY dentistry in rural Australia.
According to Anita Hansen, general manager of the Royal Flying Doctors Service in Queensland, dentists are seeing an increasing number of patients who require urgent care because they have attempted self-treatment. Access to dental treatment in remote areas of the country remains a serious problem, with many people facing a lengthy drive if they want to see a dentist.
Nicknamed the ‘outback yank’, a growing number of people living in remote communities are resorting to pulling their own teeth out, as they are not able to see a dentist at short notice or without travelling to major towns, which are far away.
The Royal Flying Doctors Service launched a rural dental care scheme two years ago, which provides mobile dentistry to ten towns in the outback and most of the 1,800 patients who have received treatment needed urgent help. People were suffering from long-term infections that had not been treated, gum disease and severe decay and complications that had arisen as a result of patients trying to extract their own teeth.
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