The Nova Scotia Dental Association wants the recently announced money earmarked for a federal dental plan to instead be assigned to provincial programs.
With the federal Liberal Party’s November budget promising $5.3 billion to fund dental care for Canadians, the Nova Scotia Dental Association wants to see that money used to bolster existing programs, following the same gradual rollout by age demographic, as proposed by the feds
“Right now the programs that we have in place are very focused on treatment,” said Jennifer MacLellan, President of the Dental Association. “There are some preventative services that are available but we’d like to see those equalized: more frequent checkups, cleaning, x-rays, fluoride – all the preventative measures.”
The goal, she says, is to keep people from needing more complex dental fixes, which are more expensive.
MacLellan also hopes the government will call on the dental association’s expertise about which services would be most appropriate for Nova Scotians and how often they should be provided.
In an open letter to the Premier Tim Houston, MacLellan wrote: “We strongly believe that Nova Scotians will be better served by one provincial system of adequately funded dental programs as opposed to a new federal one-size-fits-all program potentially overlapping and infringing upon existing programs that currently struggle under limited budgets.”
Despite having a program in place that covers dental care for children aged 15 or under, MacLellan says not all children in the province are accessing that resource.
“One thing we would also hope, with newly developed programs coming forward over the next five years, is that we’d see a greater public communication and promotion of the program.”
MacLellan wants to make sure Nova Scotians know what will be available to them so they can make better informed decisions about their health.
