Imagine you’re at the dentists, perched on a rickety stool and not on a dental chair, with no handpiece, forceps or basic kit that your dentist could reach out for. This is the dismal scenario in hundreds of government hospitals across Karnataka.
Although the State government launched its ambitious ‘Danta Bhagya’ scheme two years ago to provide free dentures to senior citizens, it has done little to cater to the primary oral healthcare needs of people in rural areas.
While there are 370 dentists working in centres run by the Heath Department as against the sanctioned strength of 424, most of them are unable to use their skills effectively without the basic dental chair — a must for a teeth examination.
This results in the dentists having to send away their patients after prescribing rudimentary medicines. These patients, who would have spent a negligible amount in government centres, end up spending hundreds of rupees in a private clinic.
In fact, most of the 75 dentists, who were recruited in January this year, are yet to see a single patient. They end up seeing patients with general ailments, according to one of the dentists.
Sources in the Health Department said that although hospitals have 235 dental chairs, more than 30 per cent of them are rusty and in need of repairs. Lack of an annual maintenance contract for the equipment has only added to the problem.
“Most patients in rural areas come with common dental problems that need extraction, cavity filling and scaling. But most centres don’t have extraction forceps, filling instruments and other material. It is difficult to get a regular flow of material in the community health centres and taluk hospitals as there isn’t a separate budgetary allocation or a monitoring body for dental issues,” said a dentist, who has been serving in the department for 13 years.
No labs too
That is not all. None of the hospitals, including district hospitals, has a dental laboratory with X-ray machines. There are only three dental lab technicians in the State-run hospitals.
Although the department had chalked out a proposal to set up labs in the district hospitals and it had also been included in the 2015-2016 budget, the proposal has been shelved because of lack of funds.
Admitting that dental infrastructure in the State-run hospitals needs to be upgraded, Health Commissioner P.S. Vastrad said the problem was with Community Health Centres (CHCs) and taluk hospitals.
“In the last few years, the focus is on primary and tertiary healthcare. Preventive healthcare, especially dental healthcare, has not got the importance it deserves. However, we have one dentist in every taluk and district hospital. We will soon procure more dental chairs and those that are not working will be repaired,” the commissioner said.
