More Dentists Needed

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 25 (Bernama) -- Malaysia will still face a shortage of dentists by 2020, Director-General of Health Datuk Mohamed Ismail Merican said Saturday.
He said the dentist population ratio in Malaysia, which stood at 1:9,560 last year, was still far from the projected 1:4,000 for the year 2020.
"In spite of three public dental schools, which is University of Malaya, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and Universiti Sains Malaysia, supplying dentists for this country, we are still short of the country's target," he said in his speech at the 13th FDI-MDA Scientific Convention and Trade Exhibition here.
Dr Ismail said the establishment of two additional private dental faculties -- the Penang International Dental College (PIDC) and Asian Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology (AIMST) -- was not expected to significantly improve the numbers.
Because of that, the Health Ministry would continue to look for more high quality dental schools, he said.
Dr Ismail said the shortage of dental care providers in rural areas, where the need was higher, was now a great concern to the ministry.
He said the public sector rendered care to about 40 per cent of Malaysians and made a special effort to help schoolchildren, and the private sector rendered oral healthcare to the remaining 60 per cent, mainly adults.
"Therein lies the synergy, both sectors supplementing and complementing each other in providing services to the population at large. But the coverage and accessibility of dental services in this country is still far from satisfactory," he said.
Dr Ismail said Malaysia also needed to increase the number of dental specialists whose ratio now was 1 orthodontist to about 320,000 people.
He said the ministry was working very hard to encourage and motivate dental officers to pursue postgraduate specialty training by providing more postgraduate scholarships for dentistry.
"From less than 20 in year 2000, we have doubled the number to more than 40 for 2006," he said.
He also said that the ministry was serious in its efforts to promote continuing professional development (CPD) and was in the process of institutionalising CPD and making it part of the assessment of its officers at all levels.
"We propose to start with medical and dental officers and pharmacists this year," he said.