“The rate of poverty in retirement in Australia is 22.6% – more than one in five. In Sweden it is 11.1% and in Norway it is 3.8%. The poverty rate is measured from country to country as a percentage of the median equivalised household income. To live in poverty means to earn less than 50% of this amount.”
– National Seniors
Older Aussies Suffering From Poverty & Poor Oral Health
The Australian Dental Association (ADA) has been stridently calling for government relief to be directed toward elderly Australians who cannot afford oral care. Cynics could say that this is just another private sector act of economic opportunism seeking a flow of public money for the members of their guild.
Obviously, it does not hurt the image of dentistry either way and may deflect public ire away from the high prices dental practitioners charge for their services. If a vulnerable section of the community cannot afford to pay for the essential health services dentists provide, blame it on the government.
“As Australia’s population ages, the need for a government-funded Seniors’ Dental Benefits Schedule (SDBS) has never been more urgent. Millions of older Australians struggle with untreated dental issues, impacting their overall health and quality of life. The Australian Dental Association has long championed the introduction of a SDBS to provide affordable care to older Australians who need it most. With the 2025 federal election fast approaching, the ADA is calling on the government to finally step up and take action. “
– ADA.org.au
Private Sector Oral Healthcare Reaches Out For Socialised Medicine Help For Senior Australians
Are we as a community going to do anything about Australian seniors’ poverty and living with dental pain? The reality for many older Aussies is a life of suffering due to tooth loss, gum disease and other severe oral health issues. The “I’m alright Jack’ attitude displayed by many of us and encouraged by our political masters neglects and treats with indifference this all-too-common problem. One would think that a civilised society and one of the wealthiest nations on earth wouldn’t tolerate such suffering among our ranks.
However, we do, and the sense of whole community shrinks as the years go by. This writer’s own father spent many years driving blind people around and helping the less fortunate in his spare time through his work in Rotary and the Church. I remember it clearly because I often had to share the back of the car with the slobbering guide dog. The Americanised Australia of today, where privatisation and neoliberalism celebrates the power of market forces has failed another section of our population with poor pensioners not being able to afford necessary dental care.
“New data released today by the Australian Dental Association shows that 16,000 older people were admitted to hospital for urgent treatment of painful dental issues in 2022-23. The ADA expects that figure to increase by 42% to 22,630 by 2027-28.”
Chief Executive Officer of COTA Australia – the leading advocacy organisation for older people – Patricia Sparrow said the statistics should act as a wake-up call on the much needed introduction of a Seniors Dental Benefit Scheme.
“The Australian Dental Association’s new statistics highlight what we’ve known for a long time – that a lack of affordable dental and oral care is leading to disastrous health outcomes for too many older Australians,” Ms Sparrow said.”
– Cota.org.au
We, as a nation, are fortunate that we have some of the best oral care in the world available right here.
Unfortunately, in our inequitable 2 speed economy, only about half the population can afford to access it.
This world of economic winners and losers is a particularly American one. That nation charges its own citizens as much for life saving drugs and medical care as it can possibly get away with. Many Aussie conservatives seek to import the same settings here. I recent memory an Australian politician tried to privatise higher education when he was PM and push us into sandstone university degrees costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Various Australian governments have attempted to kill off Medicare for 33 years, thankfully unsuccessfully. However, dental care, as we all know is not part of Medicare.
“Research from the Australian Dental Association (ADA) found two-thirds of Australians don’t visit the dentist yearly, due to affordability concerns. Up to 63 per cent cited high cost as the reason for delays.”
– ABC.net.au
You can correlate that two-thirds with those who don’t own their home outright down-under. The 2 speed economy, we all have to live with in the ‘so-called’ lucky country. Of course that ‘lucky country’ description was meant ironically in the original essay by Donald Horne.
Dental Association Calls For Senior’s Dental Benefit Scheme
The haves and the ‘have nots’, whether you give a toss or not, are together all part of our community. Community is a much neglected concept in an Americanised world, where the individual and me, me, me rules the roost. My Brother Jack is long forgotten. Dentists, of course, have to look upon the travesty in the maw of those who have long neglected their oral health through fear of economic embarrassment. It must make some of them angry, some of them a touch despairing and maybe even a mite shameful at the disturbing state of oral health in too many older Australians. The ADA campaign is their collective call to do something about the crisis. Australian seniors in poverty don’t deserve to be living with dental pain.
Worse Than A Dog’s Life For Some Oldies Among Us
Would you look upon a dog in pain with something wrong with its canines and jaw and ignore it and walk away? Probably not, plenty of folk feel strongly about animals and suffering. Yet, we let our elders rot in pain, often locked away in outsourced care facilities. Out of sight is out of mind.
Actually, it is the dental profession that goes in and sees what is going on in these places regarding oral care and its neglect. Thus, the strident calls for a bit of socialised medicine in the form of a senior’s dental benefits scheme. Because the market has not and will not take care of it. What gets into the federal budget is oft determined by how loud and influential are the voices calling for stuff. The charities, churches and ACOSS are most often ignored. We have senior’s poverty in Australia because calls for higher welfare payments have been consistently ignored for decades by successive federal governments. Australians like to believe in the undeserving poor and dole bludgers, as was seen by the Robodebt betrayal of 500,000 such Aussies being falsely accused of owing large amounts of money to Centrelink.
This resulted in tax payer’s footing the bill for a $1.8 billion settled class action against the Morrison government. The ramifications of Robodebt are still going on with the NACC, following a Royal Commission. I suppose the moral of this story is we ignore and neglect poverty within our community at our peril. Let us hope the ADA call for a senior’s dental benefits scheme gets up.
