The Wire

On Sunday the Government announced a package of over 500 million dollars in what it calls ‘a blitz on dental waiting lists to benefit low income Australians’. For many Australians dental care is simply too expensive. And according to the Consumer Health Forum 650 000 Australians are on waiting lists for public care, and on average they wait over two years to get any help.

The announcement ahead of the budget has been welcomed by many health advocates.But while this is a welcome injection of funds, some say the scale of untreated oral disease among disadvantaged Australians is too big to be solved by this initiative alone.