In my experience we've got these two options here:
- socialized dentistry, where unless you're screaming in pain dentists take two peeks into your mouth and say it's fine and tell you to get out so they can take the next patient in the 200 person line outside (and shill their afternoon private practice to you if they happen to be the more shady type)
- private dentistry, where they'll always find something random that somehow materialized out of thin air since you were there 6 months ago to fix and bill you half your monthly salary for it, despite saying they fixed everything last time
Like, can we please get some fuckin middle ground...
In the UK, loads of people are desperate to get an NHS dentist. When slots become available they are snapped up immediately, often by people that are more than capable of paying privately. I would suggest many would prefer the socialised system, perhaps because the over treatment is less likely to happen.
IIRC, Brazil includes dentistry in its regular healthcare. Cleanings are cheap-to-free so folks wind up getting cleanings and the like. There are also a lot of dentists in Brazil - I think it is the 3rd largest dental system and employes something like 15% of the world's dentists. Hardly rushing folks through while they scream in pain.
(I don't know the intricacies of the Brazilian system other than it includes dentistry and is a combination of private and public systems, so I might be wrong. Folks from Brazil seem to be happy enough with it, but they might be biased).
I'm Brazilian, lived in Portugal, Germany and Australia for a few years each, and can attest that dental care in Brazil is at least 100x better in every way. It's much less bureaucratic.
Many universities offer free-of-charge consultations, although in a limited fashion. In big cities, I've seen mobile clinics helping the homeless. It's just part of the culture now. I'll even risk saying that Brazilians don't smoke because it stains the teeth. Lots of people do drink black coffee but they'll brush their teeth afterwards.
A private company called Sorridents has taken over dentistry in Brazil with more than 500 branches. It works like Subway/McDonald's. It's affordable.
Yes, there are many more dental professionals in Brazil, but the population also spends more on it (relative to income), so it balances out. You can even get dental insurance through your energy company, but I believe the vast majority of the population doesn't have any [1].
As an anecdote, I've waited TWO YEARS for Bupa (Australia) to tell me that my wisdom teeth extraction would cost 7000AUD and they'd need to move an entire team to a hospital to do it, and I'd need to pay for general anesthesia too (some 1500-200AUD more), which is absurd. I've also consulted with three other top-rated dentists in Sydney who told me the same. I flew to Brazil, paid 500AUD in a top-notch clinic, and the procedure took less than an hour.
In both Germany and Australia, dental cleaning felt rushed, polishing wasn't done properly, they always came up a thousand little things that added to the final cost. It's ugly, it's scammy.
In Portugal you can get decent dental care due to the large amount of Brazilian dentists.
>- socialized dentistry, where unless you're screaming in pain dentists take two peeks into your mouth and say it's fine and tell you to get out so they can take the next patient in the 200 person line outside (and shill their afternoon private practice to you if they happen to be the more shady type)
What would you define as socialised healthcare? Like would Belgium or the like qualify?
- socialized dentistry, where unless you're screaming in pain dentists take two peeks into your mouth and say it's fine and tell you to get out so they can take the next patient in the 200 person line outside (and shill their afternoon private practice to you if they happen to be the more shady type)
- private dentistry, where they'll always find something random that somehow materialized out of thin air since you were there 6 months ago to fix and bill you half your monthly salary for it, despite saying they fixed everything last time
Like, can we please get some fuckin middle ground...