Average waiting times for public dental care in Victoria have blown out to more than a year.
The bottleneck of demand can be seen in the slowing numbers of visits to the chair. The state's public dentists had almost 200,000 visits in the first three months of the year – 20 per cent fewer than the first quarter of last year.
The state's Health Minister Jill Hennessy lays the blame for the waiting lists squarely at the feet of the federal government, saying a promised $200 million over three years reduced to $38.5 million in one year in the most recent federal budget.
On Tuesday morning, Ms Hennessy announced plans to pump more than $200 million back into public dentistry. This includes $3.7 million for equipment, enough to pay for 73 new dentist's chairs, 25 sterilisers and 17 X-ray machines.
"Both state and federal government have a responsibility to invest in dental healthcare and the federal government broke their promise," Ms Hennessy said.
"We will continue to campaign for the federal government to pay their fair share and we've put our money where our mouth is – pardon the pun – and put up $207 million."
ABS figures for Victoria also show that among the most disadvantaged fifth of the population, 22.1 per cent of those who needed to see a dentist did not receive a consultation in the past financial year.
Adam Ayad needed dental work done in 2012 because the enamel did not properly form on his teeth and was at the Royal Dental Hospital of Melbourne on Tuesday for a check-up.
His father Wissam said he would not have been able to afford to take Adam to a private dentist for the non-emergency treatment, so the family waited three years to get it done in the public system.
Although anyone can get emergency dental treatment at the Royal dental hospital, general dentistry is only available in the public system for health card holders, youth in the juvenile justice or out-of-home care, refugees or children under 13.
