Lobbying for rural dental health

A Public Dental Health Forum was held on 26 September at Parliament House to mark the first anniversary of the release of a report which nominated 33 recommendations to the state government in regards to rural dental services. The forum provided lobbyists, who aim for improved rural dental action, the opportunity to speak about the report and raise concerns that the recommendations have being ignored. After reading an article on this forum in the Western Advocate I contacted Marj Bollinger from the Rural Dental Action Group who gave me insight into the life of a lobbyist, committee hearings and this public forum. Mrs Bollinger is one of the co-founders of the Rural Dental Action Group which has been lobbying for better funding allocations to rural dental services for over three years (Marj Bollinger 2007, pers. comm., 3 October). The Rural Dental Action Group were invited by the Australian Dental Association in conjunction with the Greens to make a submission into the report and to point out what has happened since the NSW Government Inquiry three years ago. Mrs Bollinger stated that this forum was important as she didn’t want the report to be just another “dusty document” and it was her role as a lobbyist to have it “acted upon” (Marj Bollinger 2007, pers. comm., 3 October). Mrs Bollinger said the matter fell into the “too-hard basket” for the State Government and mentioned that the forum was well attended with a range of representation with the exception that there were no members of state government in attendance which “doesn’t give you much confidence” (Vaz, 2007). The concern for rural dental health is NSW is amplified by the spending on dental services. In 2006/07, the Northern Territory spent $40 per person, while Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania spent $34 and NSW spending just $18 (Vaz, 2007). I asked Mrs Bollinger how she raises the profile for this issue and in the past three years she has written letters to 830 politicians to convince them “in a constructive way” about rural dental health (Marj Bollinger 2007, pers. comm.., 3 October). She said it was critical that she was “persistent” and wrote to all politicians because dental health was a state and federal issue (Marj Bollinger 2007, pers. comm., 3 October). She said it was important to “identify the problem, find a solution” and then use the media to create attention about rural dental health (Marj Bollinger 2007, pers. comm., 3 October). The “persistent” letter writing generally resulted in a committee hearing where Mrs Bollinger has put forward the Rural Dental Action Group’s case (Marj Bollinger 2007, pers. comm., 3 October). The committee hearings also include questioning the speaker, which Mrs Bollinger said, lasts for half an hour so it is crucial that the speaker knows their information (Marj Bollinger 2007, pers. comm., 3 October). I asked Mrs Bollinger what was coming up for the Rural Dental Action Group and she mentioned that there were no committee hearings in the near future but would continue the Group’s monthly meetings in Orange (Marj Bollinger 2007, pers. comm., 3 October). This article and interview will be useful for the assessment on CSUPharma. I would like to thank Marj Bollinger for her interview and Ellen Vaz from the Western Advocate for her assistance.

Reference:

Vaz, E 2007 “Sensible dental plan needed in rural Australia”, The Western Advocate, Monday October 1