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Speaker 1: New day, new idea for dentistry. The Dental Associations launching

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Speaker 1: their new roadmap with a call through action. Basically, the

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Speaker 1: focus is on floridation, drink levies, work for workforce shortages,

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Speaker 1: and universal care. Doctor Robin Wyman is the Dental Association

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Speaker 1: policy director. In his back with Us, Robin morning, good morning, Wake.

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Speaker 1: You've got such a hard road of ho haven't you.

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Speaker 1: I mean, we've talked about this a million times over

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Speaker 1: the years. And do you feel like you're gaining anything

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Speaker 1: tangibly over the years.

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Speaker 2: Well, we do think we're making some gains. I think

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Speaker 2: we've had a very good gain in terms of coverage

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Speaker 2: for community water floridation in the last four or five years.

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Speaker 2: That's extended from about fifty percent to sixty percent. And

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Speaker 2: we've also seen an increase in the funding available for

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Speaker 2: special needs grants for adults who are eligible for that

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Speaker 2: from working income New Zealand. But to be honest, Mike,

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Speaker 2: we need to do a whole lot more.

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Speaker 1: Yes, you do, and I wish you wouldn't. I wish

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Speaker 1: you well with it. There's a couple of things. There's

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Speaker 1: so floridation. What do you make of the counselors who

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Speaker 1: push back. So Bloomfield before he left, and Savati these

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Speaker 1: days goes, you've got to fluoridate and they push back.

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Speaker 1: Councils push back. What do you make of that?

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Speaker 2: We think that we had always thought that the problem

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Speaker 2: with trying to make that decision at a local government

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Speaker 2: level is it's quite a controversial and at times complex

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Speaker 2: issue which requires weighing up health issues with cost issues

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Speaker 2: and technical issues. And that's why we think it's really

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Speaker 2: a public health decision that needs to be made, and

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Speaker 2: we think the decision making is in the right place,

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Speaker 2: all right.

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Speaker 1: So the couple of things you're never going to win

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Speaker 1: on as far as I can work out that your

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Speaker 1: levees they're not coming, and universal care isn't coming either.

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Speaker 1: Is that fair? As much as you may want them,

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Speaker 1: and as much as you may argue they're good, they

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Speaker 1: don't appear to.

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Speaker 2: Be coming at the moment. We would say that the

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Speaker 2: levee on sugar or sugary drinks is something that we

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Speaker 2: need to work a whole lot harder on if we're

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Speaker 2: going to see change. But we also look at other

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Speaker 2: countries that are not too far away in terms of

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Speaker 2: the way they run themselves, like the UK who've seen

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Speaker 2: a big gain from that, and so we will continue

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Speaker 2: to talk about that. When we're talking about universal care,

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Speaker 2: we talk about universal health coverage, and that isn't actually

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Speaker 2: about universal free care. What that's talking about is saying

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Speaker 2: it's important that we make sure that care is universally accessible,

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Speaker 2: but that we target and identify the groups where we

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Speaker 2: would best spend our money to improve coverage and access

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Speaker 2: to care, both in terms of need and groups who

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Speaker 2: are finding it hardest to access care, and that's where

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Speaker 2: we think we should put the priorities.

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Speaker 1: I've never had a problem getting a dentist, and I've

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Speaker 1: changed dentists a number of times and I'm at the

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Speaker 1: dentist quite a bit. So is there a workforce shortage

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Speaker 1: in that gp ish kind of way or not.

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Speaker 2: It's similar to the GP issue in some ways we

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Speaker 2: have a big distribution problem. So if you look at

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Speaker 2: the map of where dentists are in the country, in

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Speaker 2: the big urban center, particularly Auckland and West Auckland and

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Speaker 2: North Shore, very good coverage of dentists in those areas.

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Speaker 2: But once you start to get to provincial New Zealand,

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Speaker 2: even South Auckland, some quite large areas of provincial New Zealand,

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Speaker 2: even Taranaki. We have very low numbers of dentists for

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Speaker 2: the population and so provincial and rural New Zealand is

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Speaker 2: not finding it as easy to get access to a dentist.

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Speaker 1: We're sure the best with a campaign Robin Wymant doctor

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Speaker 1: Robin Wiman, New Zealand Dental Association with us. For more

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Speaker 1: from The Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to news talks.

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Speaker 1: It'd be from six am weekdays, or follow the podcast

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