Health Centers in all the Algarve's municipalities will provide, by the end of 2019, dentist appointments, according to a forecast by the Regional Health Administration (ARS).
For now, ARS do Algarve and the Chambers of São Brás de Alportel and Lagoa signed a collaboration protocol with a view to making oral health consultations available in these municipalities.
The signing of the protocols by Josélia Gonçalves, member of the Board of Directors of ARS Algarve, Anabela Simões, councilor of Lagoa, and Vítor Guerreiro, mayor of São Brás, took place at the ceremony «Oral Health for All», promoted by Ministry of Health, on September 19, in Lisbon.
The protocol will allow the Algarve's NHS «to have 50% of its territory covered with dentistry consultations by the end of the first quarter of next year», says the ARS.
Under these collaboration protocols, the municipalities will grant financial support that is intended only for the purchase of clinical equipment for the oral health rooms of the respective Health Centres, while the Regional Health Administration of the Algarve provides health professionals.
At the moment, the ARS has five oral health offices, having started dental consultations with dentists and dental assistants in the three Health Center Groups in the region in Faro, Portimão and Tavira already in November 2017, and on the 1st of September, the oral health clinics were extended to the Lagos and Loulé Health Centers.
This project for the integration of dentists in primary health care and the provision of oral health consultations in the National Health Service will be extended in 2019 to the Health Centers of Lagoa, São Brás de Alportel and Vila Real de Santo António. full coverage of the Algarve territory with oral health consultations until the end of next year.
Referral of users for dental appointments is made through the Family Doctor or another doctor at the Health Centre.
The “Oral Health for All” ceremony, where several dozen municipalities and the five Regional Health Administrations signed collaboration protocols, was attended by the Minister of Health Adalberto Campos Fernandes, Fernando Araújo, Deputy Secretary of State and Health, Graça Freitas, General Director of Health, and Orlando Monteiro da Silva, President of the Order of Dentists.
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