Sunday 25 November 2012

536. Topics for the development of an oral health policy in Portugal (II)

The financial, human resources and materials in the country are sufficient to significantly improve the health sector, including also the valence of oral health. The topics presented in the previous post are just some examples of the work that needs to be done, stopped in the last six years by the Ministry of Health
You must have an active philosophy towards health issues and deal with viable solutions that generally do not cause increases in costs and allowing wide monetize the resources already available. Prevention deserves a big highlight in oral health.
Other measures may be derived from overlapping that, firstly, the policy must be focused only to benefit the patient. For reflection (the order appears arbitrarily):
1.- Create basic oral health emergencies in central hospitals, affecting a doctor dentist 24 hours a day (in case of emergency you can not ask other experts from different areas to treat specific diseases oral health);
2.- Eliminate red tape and end up with all kinds of fees and taxes to legalize the provision of oral health care in clinics and medical centers, provided they buy all the legal requirements and to be assured that the health of patients;
3.- Making insurance mandatory for all professional technicians oral health, without exception, to cover all medical procedures performed and always safeguard the health of patients;
4.- Making health insurance compulsory for the whole population, to ensure that all people are able to access health care in the National Health Service and agreed, including access to oral health care;
5.- Discriminate positively primary health care, particularly with preventive character, facilitating and promoting widespread access and free of charge to children and young exams early diagnosis of oral health in any clinic or recognized by the Ministry of Health;
6.- Prohibit entirely advertising of all products and substances harmful to oral hygiene, including television spots for food highly detrimental to training and education for healthy eating;
7.- To effectively combat trade in food substances and highly harmful to oral hygiene, forcing companies to identify, clearly and prominently on the labels, what are its harmful effects on health;
8.- Introduce additional user fees that penalize the people who resorted systematically to health care in non-priority areas, particularly when associated with behavioral risk factors (abortion, diseases originating from tobacco use, sexually transmitted diseases, drug abuse, etc).
 

No comments: