New data has revealed many Port Macquarie patients are unable to afford basic dental care.

The history of public health over the past 40 years has been to consider a need for universal healthcare for most parts of our body, but as soon as the issue concerns our teeth rather than a bone or internal organ we should pay the costs ourselves.

A new report by the Grattan Institute demonstrates this has led to a massive inequality of dental care and shows it is time to move towards a universal dental scheme.

The Grattan Institute’s “Filling the Gap” report notes that when Medicare was introduced, it did not include coverage for a range of other services. However, since then it has been extended to “a number of additional health services, including nursing, psychology, physiotherapy, chiropractic, dietetics, podiatry, occupational therapy, osteopaths, audiologists, exercise physiologists and speech pathologists”.

And yet primary dental care remains on the outer. The report highlights how severe this impact is for dental care.

They estimate that in the past 12 months just over 2 million (18%) of Australians who needed to see the dentists delayed or skipped seeing a dentist due to cost.

There is a straightforward link between household income and the likelihood of skipping going to the dentist – much more so than for skipping a GP visit or seeing a specialist: And while there is the stereotype of the trip to the dentist as something that people find frightening, the reality is the real fright for most low to median income earners is the cost.

Only 19% of those in the median household income decile claimed fear or dislike of the dentist as the reason for avoiding seeing the dentist (compared with 22% of those in the highest income decile).

But while 25% of those in the highest income decile said cost was the main factor, it was the reason 57% of those on median incomes avoided the dentist and accounted for two-thirds of the reason why those in the lowest income decile did so And this has costs to health.

While for younger people the issue is not so obvious, by the time you reach your 40s the impact of not going to the dentist is very apparent, with those aged 45-64 on incomes of $30,000 having lost double the number of teeth than had those earning over $140,000:

Health experts warn postponing or cancelling appointments can do a lot of damage in the long run.

Video By | Mia Tyquin