Robin Whyman: Dental Policy Director on the Dental Roadmap to address poor oral health

A plan's been laid out for potential dental reforms to address New Zealanders’ poor oral health. 

New Zealand Dental Association data shows one in three Kiwis have untreated tooth decay. 

Its policy roadmap for the next five years includes expanding community water fluoridation, introducing a sugary drink levy, and including oral care into our universal health coverage.  

Dental Policy Director Robin Whyman told Mike Hosking the big issue with the workforce shortage is distribution. 

He says that big urban centres, particularly in Auckland, have very good coverage, but in provincial areas there’s a much lower number of dentists and as a result, rural New Zealanders can struggle to get access. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
New day, new idea for dentistry. The Dental Associations launching
their new roadmap with a call through action. Basically, the
focus is on floridation, drink levies, work for workforce shortages,
and universal care. Doctor Robin Wyman is the Dental Association
policy director. In his back with Us, Robin morning, good morning, Wake.
You've got such a hard road of ho haven't you.
I mean, we've talked about this a million times over

(00:21):
the years. And do you feel like you're gaining anything
tangibly over the years.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Well, we do think we're making some gains. I think
we've had a very good gain in terms of coverage
for community water floridation in the last four or five years.
That's extended from about fifty percent to sixty percent. And
we've also seen an increase in the funding available for
special needs grants for adults who are eligible for that
from working income New Zealand. But to be honest, Mike,

(00:50):
we need to do a whole lot more.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
Yes, you do, and I wish you wouldn't. I wish
you well with it. There's a couple of things. There's
so floridation. What do you make of the counselors who
push back. So Bloomfield before he left, and Savati these
days goes, you've got to fluoridate and they push back.
Councils push back. What do you make of that?

Speaker 2 (01:07):
We think that we had always thought that the problem
with trying to make that decision at a local government
level is it's quite a controversial and at times complex
issue which requires weighing up health issues with cost issues
and technical issues. And that's why we think it's really
a public health decision that needs to be made, and
we think the decision making is in the right place,
all right.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
So the couple of things you're never going to win
on as far as I can work out that your
levees they're not coming, and universal care isn't coming either.
Is that fair? As much as you may want them,
and as much as you may argue they're good, they
don't appear to.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Be coming at the moment. We would say that the
levee on sugar or sugary drinks is something that we
need to work a whole lot harder on if we're
going to see change. But we also look at other
countries that are not too far away in terms of
the way they run themselves, like the UK who've seen
a big gain from that, and so we will continue
to talk about that. When we're talking about universal care,

(02:01):
we talk about universal health coverage, and that isn't actually
about universal free care. What that's talking about is saying
it's important that we make sure that care is universally accessible,
but that we target and identify the groups where we
would best spend our money to improve coverage and access
to care, both in terms of need and groups who

(02:22):
are finding it hardest to access care, and that's where
we think we should put the priorities.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
I've never had a problem getting a dentist, and I've
changed dentists a number of times and I'm at the
dentist quite a bit. So is there a workforce shortage
in that gp ish kind of way or not.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
It's similar to the GP issue in some ways we
have a big distribution problem. So if you look at
the map of where dentists are in the country, in
the big urban center, particularly Auckland and West Auckland and
North Shore, very good coverage of dentists in those areas.
But once you start to get to provincial New Zealand,
even South Auckland, some quite large areas of provincial New Zealand,

(03:02):
even Taranaki. We have very low numbers of dentists for
the population and so provincial and rural New Zealand is
not finding it as easy to get access to a dentist.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
We're sure the best with a campaign Robin Wymant doctor
Robin Wiman, New Zealand Dental Association with us. For more
from The Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to news talks.
It'd be from six am weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio