Dental work in Philippines saves 80% and you get to holiday in paradise!

©2009 Glenn Anthony Johns.

Australian Dentists Laugh Like Sharks

By Glenn Anthony Johns
Freelance Journalist, Melbourne/Manila
24th April 2009

THE AUSTRALIAN dental industry both public and private is the laughing stock of the developed world. Unacceptable waiting lists’, scare

mongering, over inflated and un-regulated pricing all mean Australia lags behind the rest of the developed world for dental health care.

A recent report co-produced by the Council of Social Service of New South Wales (NSW) was very damning stating 67% of all patients in the public health service

in that state were waiting for over six months for public dental care. There were no shining lights in other states, it just happens that NSW was

the worst performer. In some cases patients waited over 2 years.

Dentistry reform has been identified as a priority by the Rudd Government's National Health and Hospital Reform Commission.

Partly funded by a new levy on income earners there’s division as to whether this is a breakthrough or in fact unworkable.

How a government can be allowed in a developed country like Australia to provide only 300 dentists in the state of NSW to service the vast

majority who can only afford public services (read free) while they let the private sector run amok with no pricing regulations therefore putting

upward pressure on a severely retarded system is a major concern.

The private sector charge like wounded bulls and are beyond reproach. Take it or leave it means many suffer in silence, dreaming of having at

the very least enough teeth to eat with.

Denticare, as it will be called, will supposedly help address this by emphasising preventative rather than emergency treatment.

Neil Hewson, President of the Australia Dental Association said on the 7.30 report on the ABC in March this year that the public sector

is “a system that for many years had been grossly under-resourced and it needs more resources and it needs to be re-structured.”

He also believes the government’s proposal will only “dilute the benefit to the people most in need by distributing it to the whole population.”

He’s an advocate of the private sector supporting the public sector. How will that work when the stratospheric cost of preventative,

reconstructive and cosmetic surgery in the private sector is the reason why there’s so much demand on the public system in the first place?

Regardless, everyone knows that going to a private dentist has little to do with the pain of needles or drills. It’s the pain and ease with which a

dentist can extract money out of your pocket without question, without challenge. Its not rocket science for a patient on an average wage to

decide to have a tooth pulled out rather than crowned because the saving can be up to AUS$1400. At up to AUS$300 to have to tooth out, it’s

still nearly a third of the average Australian weekly wage and takes 10 minutes. How many people no matter what they earn can afford

AUS$1850 for a porcelain crown?

If you’re on the public system or don’t have health insurance that decision is made for you. Even if you do have private health insurance, the

gap is great enough for that decision to also be made for you.

This form of daylight robbery masquerading as dental care shot out of the report compiled by health, welfare and patient groups like a root

canal gone wrong. It was the reason 70% of patients shied away from proper dental care until the last minute.

Considering the seriousness and importance of dental treatment as a matter of course in this shift to preventative health care, identified as a

primary consideration of the proposed Denticare, over pricing and under service directly affects other sectors of an already overburdened

health system. Jaw surgery to repair botched dental work is not uncommon and the psychological effect on a patient with sore, discoloured or

haggly teeth may never fully be known because of the reluctance of patients to admit their teeth are affecting their everyday life.

By comparison, a patient can choose to travel to a third world country like the Philippines and have the work done for a fraction of the cost of

the same work in Australia.

Not only that, the service is more personal with some dentists picking their patients up in their private car and driving them to the clinic to

commence or continue dental treatment.

Dr Joel Gutierrez, D.M.D.,F.A.I.D., F.I.C.D., Affiliate member of the American Dental Association, is a dentist who operates out of Manila.

He has a constant flow our international patients who choose to visit him on price, quality and the chance to perhaps mix in a holiday

at the same time as saving ten’s of thousands of dollars and having the work completed in days or weeks; not months.

“Most patients I see from Australia come to me because of the cost,” says the 30 year dental veteran and member of the prestigious Piere

Fauchard Academy, an International Dental Honour Society where admission is by invitation only.

“Here in the Philippines we have the people and means to work to international standards but where you might pay $1800 for a crown in

Australia, I can do the same work here for AUS$300-$400”.

“We also can get the work done sometimes in as little as a few days,” he added.

Having a dental laboratory specialising in the manufacturing of porcelain crowns and bridges a few floors below his 21st floor clinic in a

modern downtown Manila office building, it serves dentists from different parts of the Philippines and the United States of America and this

allows a quick turn around. Some products used in his clinic are manufactured in Bayswater, Victoria.

All dental practitioners graduate with the Degree of Doctor of Dental Medicine after 6 long years of study - both in theory and practice. Thus,

they are called Doctors in the Philippines. As is the case with most graduates of Dental Medicine worldwide.

A third world and mainly Catholic country, most western patients are concerned with regulatory authorities over seeing best practice with

regard to operating procedures and sanitization. Dr Gutierrez assures that’s an important consideration.

“We are allowed to practice our profession only after taking and passing the National Licensure Examination. I took this exam in December

1978”, he says in the familiar Fino-American drawl most Filipino’s have. Dr Gutierrez topped his exam with the highest score among the

examinees that year.

“We have a Government agency that oversees that all clinics comply with the acceptable international protocol in infection control and

regulates the practitioners in terms of continuing education, skill development, and ethical practice.”Chairman of the Philippine Dental Association’s Dental Tourism Committee, Dr Gutierrez says the aim of his group is to make their members

aware, follow, and execute the guidelines on global compliance

“Our foremost concern is proper sterilization of our equipment by using autoclave sterilizers and prevention of cross contamination. We

conduct mandatory continuing education to upgrade our skills and to keep us abreast with global practices.”

Australian dentists can claim world’s best practice, world’s best procedures and are thoroughly modern and up to date with the latest in

techniques, tooling, bonding and building agents just as they are in the Philippines.

Often when patients mention travelling to places like the Philippines to their Australian dentist, they ‘tut-tut’ and warn of all the things Dr

Gutierrez and his industry peers are clearly succeeding in over coming. The notion that third world dentistry is somehow inferior to that

performed in Australia. That it represents more dangers and risk than you face sitting in a chair in a developed country that makes those who

need it most wait six months to get a filling or mortgage the house to save a tooth.

This doesn’t make sense when you consider a dentist 5000 miles away will see you before your tooth needs pulling and can fix it or replace it

at a price that allows you a little holiday, airfares and accommodation for the same price as a root canal, some crowns and a few x-rays would

cost in Australia. You’ll get change, your smile back and be treated with respect and dignity.

Interestingly, the price available to foreigners is almost the same for locals.

That explains why jeepney driving local Filipinos, if they’re lucky, earning AUS$30 a week, all have magnificent smiles and yet in Australia, the

only ones with great smiles are foreign car driving types with a fin, albeit an invisible one, protruding from between their shoulders.

Perhaps this is where the phrase “laughing like a shark” gained its origin.

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Glenn Johns is a qualified freelance journalist with 25 years radio/print media experience. At his own expense he recently travelled to the Philippines for major dental work that he estimates would have cost AUS$30,000 - $40,000. The work included but was not exclusive to;13 porcelain crowns, 2 root canals, 2 bridges, 4 composite fillings, scaling and polishing, bottom teeth bleach, 10 x-rays, travel, accommodation, spending money. The work was completed over 2 weeks of which one was spent travelling around the Philippines in between visits.