If dental care was publicly funded, fewer people would become addicted to opioids.
That’s just one of the reasons Dr. Hasan Sheikh, an emergency room physician in Toronto, is calling on governments to expand medicare.
If dental care was publicly funded, fewer people would become addicted to opioids.
That’s just one of the reasons Dr. Hasan Sheikh, an emergency room physician in Toronto, is calling on governments to expand medicare.
How do people so flawlessly inept at critical thinking become accredited? Reminds me of the old joke about the plumber who called himself a drain surgeon. Ghastly is a word for these people.
That’s correct…
marc in calgary PhD
Plumbing, heating, drains.
…
Has it crossed anyone’s mind to put a dentist on call for the ER?
There is free dentistry on-a-bus, sorta like pro bono.
Maybe he is not proposing the right solution, but he is identifying a legitimate problem. Someone in the comments section suggested that publicly funded dental care makes more sense than publicly funded pharmacare. I agree with that. Maybe funding a dental referral service for emergency situations is the way to go.
If dental care was publicly funded, fewer people would become addicted to opioids.
OTOH, if people took care of their teeth, this would be a non-issue, regardless, it is not necessary to prescribe opioids for toothaches, so if that is all you do, doc, you are the problem. One can use NSAIDS for most, topical anesthetics, a combination, or, I know this is wacky, do a nerve block just like the dentists do (it is easy to learn) unless there is some Canadian law that says medical doctors cannot do this. After that, send the patient to a dentist unless the Canadian dentists are all not allowed to do service cases for those who cannot afford it.
as much as I dislike putting out hundreds of dollars for dental care I do pay for insurance and get reimbursed for about 80% of the cost. some insurance is better than others, but, it all is better than having the government start increasing our taxes by another 10% across the board to reduce the overall quality of dentistry country wide.
Oh, great idea! Screw up and fail another part of the medical system. Kate’s thread header is right.
One only has to look at the average Brit’s chompers to see the wonders of government-ruun dental care.
I don’t agree that if the dental care becomes publicly funded it will curb the problem. Using opioids is choice and that is where they decide to spend their money. So you want taxpayers to pay for the habit of many who choose to do opioids. This is, as bad as having safe drug sites, it is the taxpayers money that is being used, not opioids users most live on social assistance our taxpayers money again. So the people that are working and trying to make ends meet are subsidizing these opioids users. The gov’t needs to do something about this let the opioids users die, as this is their choice!! The is Euthanasia by their own hand very legal!
You wanna see the COST of dental care spiral out of control ? Make the government pay for it. Anyone who believes that Canada will be receiving the “Affordable Dental Care Act” is out of their minds. Affordable … affordable … affordable … affordable … … … affordable (to quote Nancy Pelosi).
Seems to me that this Dentist doesn’t like the $$$SIZE$$$ of his piece of the healthcare pie. He knows that once he gets his hands into the deep pockets of the taxpayer … he’ll keep turning up the laughing gas till he’s taken every last cent.
Canada is the only country in the world where publicly funded “universal” health care doesn’t include prescription drugs and basic dental. If your doctor prescribes you medication for a chronic problem, then at least the generic version should be covered (fyi: in Ontario if you ignore your doctor’s dictates on some drugs you are at rick of being “fired” by them — so this isn’t optional treatment). An annual visit to the dentist should be covered along with regular x-rays and non-cosmetic procedures — for the 30% of Canadians that don’t have private dental insurance these costs can be prohibitive and this just kicks the can down the road.
fwiw in Ontario: you get 1 free eye exam a year if you are a child or have certain medical conditions (e.g. diabetes); dental surgery is covered by OHIP as long as you have it under full anesthetic in a hospital (even if it could be done cheaper in a dentists office); OHIP will cover some elective surgery if you get a prescription (e.g. ACL repair); and I am sure there are more examples of the double standard.
Of course if you charged these tooth achers $$$ for every visit that didn’t require “emergency” action then you would find these folks going to the dentist and saving the healthcare system $$$
p.s. The majority of tooth aches are cured when the dentist (or barber out west) pulls the offending tooth.
p.p.s. Who is making the ER doctor prescribe narcotics anyway? Physician, heal thy methodology.
“The 180” is an example of true irony — not the post-modern, Alanis-Morissette kind. They earnestly think that their title reflects a mandate to present a challenging, opposing point of view; in actual fact it relects that a full half of the political spectrum is completely invisible to them.
Extractions should be included in pubic healthcare. Dental infections destroy hearts and can turn a $200 problem into a $200,000 problem. My neighbor died of a dental infection.
Solution – Replace public funded hangings (i.e. abortion) with public funded dental care. That should cover it.
Extraction related infections are an unreported ER surgery problem. So said the ear-nose-throat specialist before I went under the knife last year. Still recovering from post trauma,
Once you have bought into the idea that people are chattel, owned by the state and thus “free” health care is part of the “bargain” then it is a logical extension that dental care might as well be rationed accordingly.
Here is an idea, if the dental colleges aren’t producing enough graduates thus causing a dental crisis, just like the medical colleges have done over the last thirty or so years causing our ongoing medical GP shortage then we should import qualified professionals from overseas. I’m sure many of the refugees, which the Liberal government has assured us are well qualified in these fields will fill the bill nicely and we can get top notch immediate health and dental care like this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0W1ObUrxgo
End game: government run/controlled everything. The movie is called ‘Logan’s Run’ and it was made back in the 60s or 70. Animal Farm, 1984, Brave New World… the warnings were plentiful and universally ignored.
Too late…
We’re in the mop-up stage on the road to serfdom…
My experience from 25 years ago owning a drug store in a small community is that dentists prescribe oxycodone NOT for toothaches but for the after surgery pain.On the other hand after I had hip replacement surgery a year ago I was prescribed a “swack” of oxycodone for the pain.End result was no pain so I returned the oxycodone unopened to the drug store.That stuff scares the “crap” out of me. Not even sure I would have used it with pain.
my significant dental work is done at the local university school of dentistry. the practitioners address every aspect of the work as it is all meticulously scrutinized and evaluated by the professionally licensed instructors.
at about 1/3 of the cost. how is a gold crown (with today’s prices for the yellow metal) for 400 bucks. or was it 450?
the downside is the waiting list. meh.
I’m also having dental work done at the nearby university. Even though the next one’s going to cost me around $800, it’s still half the price I would have paid if I had gone to a regular clinic.
I’ve had no problems with scheduling, though. The time before I can get an appointment is about the same there as it was with my previous dentist.
I am a dentist and my wife is an emerg doc. I hear her grump about toothache patients and it is a legit beef. However the leap that some sort of national dental health care program would change this is absolutely false. Several things about this story bother me:
1. For dental pain, NSAIDS like ibuprofen outperform narcotics by a wide margin. This emerg doc should know this. It’s why the junkies all claim to be allergic to everything but narcotics.
2. Many of these dental disasters that present to the emergency department already have govt funded care through provincial social assistance or through Indian Affairs. That in itself proves that throwing money at the problem does not work.
3. Health care is a provincial responsibility, not federal.
4. I have lectured to the emerg residents in the past and one of the most useful things they can do for these patients is to freeze them with long acting local anaesthetic (e.g. marcaine) which will get them out of discomfort until they can get to a dentist in the a.m.
5. Major cities usually have an after-hours dental emergency clinic, often associated with the teaching hospital. I cannot believe that Toronto does not have these.
6. Many of the patients who show up in emerg with a toothache do so not because they cannot afford it, but because they want to get treatment for free. “I need to get this tooth dealt with because I am going to Hawaii next week” is not a crisis of affordability. It is a failure to makes one’s health a priority, and that is largely a result of having socialised medicine in this country.
Health care is a personal responsibility.
Being overweight could increase the risk of a host of cancers…
The new study by an international team adds weight to the warning, revealing that there is currently strong evidence for a link between excess body fat and an increased risk of 11 cancers: colon, rectum, endometrium, breast, ovary, kidney, pancreas, gastric cardia, biliary tract system and certain cancers of the esophagus and bone marrow.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/feb/28/increased-risk-of-11-types-of-cancer-linked-to-being-overweight-researchers-warn