that oral health care stops being a luxury

Within the framework of World Oral Health Daywhich is commemorated every March 20, the Platform for Seniors and Pensioners (PMP) He recalled that oral health is part of people’s comprehensive health and warned that oral care continues to be one of the great pending issues of the National Health System (SNS)especially affecting the elderly and disabled people.

In this way, the organization has stressed that the lack of public coverage sufficient in this area affects the entire population, but it especially harms the older people, that accumulate a increased burden of oral disease, with a high percentage of tooth loss, which directly impacts their diet, their general health and their quality of life.

“It is not acceptable that, with the level of economic and social development in Spain, oral health care continues to be left outside the real protection of the National Health System, precisely in the stages of life in which it is most needed,” said the president of the PMP Health Commission, José Manuel Freire.

In recent years there have been some advances, such as explicit inclusion of people over 65 years of age in the funds intended to expand the common portfolio of oral health services of the SNS, as well as the announcement, by the Ministry of Health, of specific items for the health of the elderly population (including oral health) in the General State Budget Project for 2025. The PMP has positively valued these steps, which have responded in part to its proposals, but has considered them clearly insufficient in relation to the magnitude of the problem and the number of people affected.

For this reason, on the occasion of this anniversary, the PMP has demanded that oral health stop being treated as an “extra” and become fully integrated into the SNS service portfolio, under conditions of territorial equity and free of architectural barriers, as well as that a stable financing plan be finalized, that is, sufficient and independent of political changes, which guarantee its real implementation in all autonomous communities.

The Platform has also insisted on the urgency of launch a specific subsidy plan for dental treatments aimed at older people and to older people with disabilities with low resources, so that no one is excluded from basic care for economic reasons. In the opinion of the organization, this is a measure that responds to a deeply felt health need and basic criteria of social justice, and which appears to be feasible from a budgetary point of view as long as it is given priority in public policies.

“Many older people have lived and continue to live with pain, with difficulties chewing and eating correctly or with inadequate prostheses just because they have not been able to bear the cost of dental treatment. We are talking about health, nutrition and dignity, not aesthetics,” stressed Freire, who has asked “to move from declarations of principles to concrete budgetary decisions.”

These proposals are framed in the National Health Plan for the Elderly and Older People with Disabilities that the PMP has been defending, and which includes, among other measures, the reinforcement of home care from health centers, the provision of adequate Primary Care services in all residences and the expansion of the portfolio of common services of the SNS, with special attention to oral health. The Platform has recalled that, “without strong, preventive and care-oriented public health, it is impossible to respond adequately to the challenges of population aging in the coming decades.

On the other hand, the PMP has also warned of the vulnerable situation in which many older people have found themselves as patients using private dental services. In this sense, it has asked administrations to strengthen monitoring of compliance with consumer protection regulations in the field of dental clinics, which guarantee truthful advertising and transparent treatment and to avoid repetition of episodes of malpractice, abuse and disability discrimination that have occurred in the past.

In short, the Platform has considered that World Oral Health Day should serve not only to remember the importance of oral hygiene, but above all to “reaffirm the commitment of public powers to truly universal healthcare, where dental care is not left out of public protection precisely in the stages of life when it is most needed.” Likewise, the PMP has reiterated its willingness to collaborate with the Ministry of Health, the autonomous communities and the rest of the actors involved so that full attention to the oral health of older people begins to move, as soon as possible, from paper to reality.