Medical card holders ‘cannot access dental treatment’, says Cork TD

A Cork TD has called for a full review of the Dental Treatment Services Scheme (DTSS) as medical card holders “cannot access treatment”.

In response to a parliamentary question, raised by Sinn Féin Cork North Central TD, Thomas Gould, a spokesperson for the Health Service Executive confirmed that the number of medical card patients, seen by dentists in Cork between 2019 and 2024, has dropped by 13%.

Data provided by the HSE shows there were 40,654 medical card patients seen across the four local health office areas in Cork last year, a difference of more than 6,000 patients when compared to the 46,741 seen in 2019.

According to the HSE, the agency is “aware that DTSS contractors may have limited capacity to take on new patients”.

“Availability of appointments fluctuates according to the daily capacity of the practices, with additional capacity limited to the number of clinicians and clinical hours worked within the practice,” a HSE spokesperson said.

Withdrawing

Mr Gould is now calling on the government to re-evaluate the DTSS as dentists are withdrawing from the scheme “at a rate of knots because it is not fit for purpose”.

“Where previously almost 4,000 medical card patients were seen a month by dentists in Cork, this reduced to 3,300 per month last year,” said Mr Gould.

“We saw reductions in the number of appointments and the number of patients. This is mirrored in clear reductions in the number of dentists signed up to the General Medical Service programme.

“In the last five years, eligibility for medical cards has expanded, [and] this is welcome, but is nothing more than meaningless if it is not coupled with increased accessibility to medical services,” he added.

“There are people in pain; people who need dental treatment in Cork and cannot access it.

Crisis

Mr Gould said the reality is that “access to medical card dentistry is in crisis”.

“It is clear that we need to see action from Government,” said Mr Gould.

“The DTSS is essential for older people and low-income families to make sure they can get access to oral healthcare, but now it’s collapsing.

“Dentists on the scheme cannot cover their costs and medical card holders cannot access treatment.

“The minister needs to work with dentists to get dentists back, to fix the fees on the scheme, and to modernise the contract to open up preventative treatments available to public patients.”