The Order of Dentists (OMD) welcomed, in a statement, the Ministry of Health's intention to integrate dentists in family health units and health centers.
To this end, the OMD will outline a pilot project to be presented as soon as possible to the Ministry of Health, and the two entities intend to sign, by the end of next month, a memorandum of understanding.
The pilot project should list and evaluate preferential regions, basic treatments portfolio, provision of facilities, equipment supplies and control mechanisms.
Orlando Monteiro da Silva, chairman of the OMD, says that “we have long denounced the absence of oral health care in the National Health Service (SNS). It's a gap that has lasted since the SNS was created in 1979 and that until now has never been closed”.
“There is still a deeply wrong view in Portugal that separates oral health from health as a whole and entails enormous costs for people, but also for the State. Therefore, we welcome this initiative, by minister Adalberto Campos Fernandes and his team, which, if implemented, will be a fundamental milestone for Portuguese dentistry and oral health for the Portuguese”, adds the chairman.
The pilot project that the OMD will prepare includes an action plan that will have to meet the concept defined by the Ministry of Health, which proposes a notion of public health that ensures the promotion of oral health.
Orlando Monteiro da Silva is satisfied with the continuation of the National Oral Health Program, known as the “dentist check”, a “program with very positive effective results, especially among children, and which has allowed to meet the needs of some groups specific populations, namely the most deprived populations, but which needs to be expanded to respond to the entire population”.
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