Brunei's Local News - Brudirect.com

Bandar Seri Begawan - Amid the rising burden of oral A diseases, the Department of Dental Services under the Ministry of Health has been urged to tackles the root of problem through aggressive oral health promotion and disease prevention instead on concentrating on treating the consequences.

Minister of Health Pehin Orang Kaya Indera Pahlawan Dato Seri Setia Haji Suyoi bin Hj Osman, made the suggestion during his opening remarks at the 2nd Federation of Dentistry International/ Ministry of Health Brunei Darussalam International Dental Convention and World Oral Health Day 2008 at the Rizqun international Hotel yesterday.

The minister highlighted, "The problem we face is that this huge disease burden is translated into high demands for restorative services which severely constrain our valuable and limited health care resources."

He posed, "Can we afford to continue to provide this tertiary level of services? Can Oral Health

services continue to carry out its mission of providing an effective, equitable, affordable, accessible and sustainable oral health care, if the primary strategy of the services is to early on tackling the damages caused by these oral diseases?

"This is where my emphasis on prevention must be amplified to the whole dental profession which has to realize that clinical intervention alone is not only ineffective but also expensive. Oral diseases are still a major public health problem in Brunei Darussalam, we cannot afford to carry on treating the consequences of these oral disease. We have to attack the cause of these problems instead."

Speaking of dental health education as an important part of the dentist's responsibility to patients, Pehin Haji Suyoi said, "Dentists and their staff give individually tailored advice and reinforce this in subsequent visits. Their advice on mouth care can be reinforced by health visitors, nurses, doctors, pharmacists, teachers and playgroup leaders."

He added, "Clinical innovations have and will continue to lead to escalating high personal and health services costs which if left unchecked may threaten the ability of the oral health services to provide an acceptable level of quality care that is reasonably accessible to the residents of Brunei Darussalam. Definitely, this is totally unacceptable to us as we cannot afford to carry on increasing the funding for oral health services if you persist in your losing battle to stem the ever raising tide of oral diseases."

However, He said, "We still need to provide a safety net to treat those existing diseases. Damaged teeth and gums need to be repaired and restored."

The minister also strongly urged that the Dental Department seriously address the problem of escalating high personal and health services costs and propose practical ways by not relying on government to fund these services year after year. The two-day conference includes invited speakers from Malaysia, Sweden and Hong Kong. There are also hands-on workshops in bonding of fiber posts. There are also colorings contests for children to drive the message home. -- Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin