PUTRAJAYA: The government wants to have about 800 dental graduates a year to meet the needs of the people, said Health Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai.He said the number was to meet the target set by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to have one dentist for every 4,000 people by 2018 compared to one dentist for every 7,840 people now.
Now, he said, only 250 dentists graduated a year through 11 dentistry faculties in the country.
“We will cooperate with the Ministry of Higher Education to find ways to open up more faculties to produce more dentists,” he said after a courtesy call on him by the Chinese Stomatological Association and the Malaysian Dental Association here yesterday.
Liow said the existing faculties will increase their intake but that they could not take too many students as the dental course needed close supervision so that the students acquired good clinical skills.
“There is a ratio of how many students to how many lecturers and so on, so the intake is actually very small and like in many other countries the maximum intake is 100 students per faculty,” he said.
Meanwhile, Liow said 90 per cent of adults in the country had dental problems, while 60 per cent of children aged 12 years also had dental problems.
He said this was worrying.
“If milk teeth were to go bad, its not so bad as there is opportunity for a second chance but if just in Year Six there are dental problems then that is worrying.
“This is serious and we have to look at this seriously. If not, by the time they become adults, all the teeth would have to be extracted and dentures would have to be used. That is not healthy,” he said.
As such, he said, the government with the cooperation of the Malaysian Dental Association will launch a campaign on dental health in March which will involve educating people on the importance of dental care.
This would include schools. — Bernama