Wednesday, 19 March 2025

Dental services

Aiv PUGLIELLI (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (19:45): (1533) My adjournment matter tonight is to the Minister for Health, and the action I seek is that she increase investment into public dental health care in Victoria. People have shared with my office their experiences of getting dental health care in this state. Their stories are important.

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I have a broken tooth that requires a reconstruction I cannot afford, so I fill it with temporary filling putty every day myself and work through the pain. I work two jobs to pay my rent, but it is getting harder on my health, especially without my medication supporting me.

I am in my 20s and I have already lost two molars due to being unable to access affordable dentistry.

The budget has never fixed my teeth. The budget has never provided me with medication. The budget has never improved my quality of life or ability to work. The government has the money to provide free health care but chooses to hoard it for the sake of the budget. Damn your self-gratifying budget.

I am sure many of us here fondly remember the joy of eating a Roll-Up during lunchtime at primary school and spending the next class getting all the sticky bits out from between our teeth. I wish that these stories that I have just read were that cute and that simple, but they are not. These are real human stories of people’s health being compromised because they cannot afford to see a dentist. We have a Medicare system in this country that for whatever reason does not see teeth as part of the human body, and so we see people in our community living in pain every single day. So let me say this clearly: dental care should be free. Dental care should be included in Medicare. I know that that part of the problem is for your federal counterparts, but I beg you to push them to do this. Properly fund public dental care in our state. We need it. Poor dental health affects so many aspects of people’s lives. I cannot believe I have to lay it out this simply, but universal health care must include teeth.