National is promising to spend an extra $30 million on improving dental services for children, including a free toothbrush, toothpaste and information pack each year.
Missed the announcement? Watch it back here:
Party leader Judith Collins, health spokesperson Shane Reti and National's Whanganui MP Harete Hipango announced the MySmile Tamariki Niho Ora policy in Whanganui today.
The policy would include:
- All children provided with an annual dental health pack containing information material, a toothbrush and toothpaste for daily tooth brushing
- Oral health education programme
- Funding a free fluoride varnish
- A supervised brushing programme
National says the $30m will increase funding for childhood dental services by 30 percent, up from $100m, and is expected to net five times the benefit compared to the cost.
The party says it would involve increased resources for paediatric and school dental services and an education drive.
"There are currently 120,000 Kiwi kids on dental waiting lists," Collins says. "We will provide the resources to ensure children most at need can get the access to quality dental care they deserve."
"Dental health to me is a really important thing for children and actually adults too. And we often meet people who have had poor dental health ... it holds them back forever if they can't stop that continuing.
"I've also thought ... one of the really hard things for people who are dealing with having lost some of their teeth or all of their teeth is dealing with stigma around that but also around confidence levels.
"It holds them back from being part of the economy, being in jobs, holds them back from taking opportunities that other people have and this is a really sensible way of dealing with - excuse the pun - the root of the issue."
The free dental healthcare pack was based on a model introduced in Scotland in the 2000s, where tooth decay in five-year-olds decreased from 42 percent of children in 2008 - before the programme - to 32 percent in 2014.
Dr Reti says the programme will involve supervised brushing.
"What they've done in Scotland is for the three to five year olds, they have volunteers or school teachers who on a daily basis supervise effective tooth-brushing. For the older age group, they actually bring in dental therapists for the eight to 13 [year olds] and they actually supervise daily tooth-brushing."
He says the party is hoping to roll the programme out to at least 100,000 children in the first year, eventually increasing to 500,000.
"All New Zealand children should have access to the resources they need to have good oral health," Dr Reti says.
"Regardless of income, background or postcode, we're giving children who might have otherwise missed out an opportunity for quality dental care."
Collins says she does not see a case for banning fizzy drinks, advocating instead for flouridated water.
"What I see is far better education for parents about what is actually in the fizzy drinks that their kids are drinking. I also think it's really important that we have if possible flouridated water, I'm very fond of flouridated water, I've seen the difference between my son's teeth and my teeth at that same age.
"Children's teeth do need to have some help and that help is flouridated water."
The party says families, schools and kindergartens will have the option to opt out of the policy.
Katie Ayers President of New Zealand Dental Association says the policy is really welcome news.
"We have been calling for increased funding for community oral health for a few years now so we are really pleased that the National party has put this into their policy."
"The community oral health service has certainly been really severely impacted by covid ... we already had a number of children overdue for their recalls and with Covid having shut down particularly Auckland twice, the number of children overdue for treatment has just escalated this year so it's a real problem."
She said more needed to be done for adults too, but NZDA understood the Covid-19 pandemic had changed things.
"In an ideal world we'd definitely like to see funding for adults too because we've been asking for this for adults too and we've shared some suggestions for how that could be achieved.
"We do understand that Covid has changed priorities somewhat and there isn't going to be enough money for everything so this is a really good step in the right direction."
NZ Dental Association calls for better adult care
New Zealand Dental Association president Katie Ayers welcomed the policy.
"We have been calling for increased funding for community oral health for a few years now so we are really pleased that the National party has put this into their policy.
"The community oral health service has certainly been really severely impacted by Covid ... we already had a number of children overdue for their recalls and with Covid having shut down particularly Auckland twice, the number of children overdue for treatment has just escalated this year so it's a real problem."
She said more needed to be done for adults too.
"In an ideal world, we'd definitely like to see funding for adults too, because we've been asking for this for adults too and we've shared some suggestions for how that could be achieved."
Funding for urgent dental grants should be doubled, the age of free dental care should be increased from 18 to 24 for people on a benefit, and research should be done to explore funding options for different communities, she says, and failure to do so would not be pretty.
"It's just more of the same really, more adults in pain, more adults with missing teeth, more adults presenting to emergency departments, more adults being admitted to hospital and sometimes even intensive care due to the severity of their dental infection.
"It's essentially all preventable ... we understand the only way to get traction and raising the profile of oral health is to do it through the parties and so that's what we've been really concentrating on the past couple of years.
"We do understand that Covid has changed priorities somewhat and there isn't going to be enough money for everything so this is a really good step in the right direction."
Ardern points to other health priorities
Labour Party leader Jacinda Ardern says New Zealand already has elements of public health campaigns and provision of toothbrushes and toothpaste.
"Yes, those are all things that we have elements of now and actually the Ministry of Health have been working on to extend as well."
"One thing I would say is you name an area of health and it would have been an area that we are working to rebuild. Making sure that we're funding Pharmac to provide really necessary pharmaceutical products, rebuilding our hospitals ... there has been high need in health and dental is one of them but we need to prioritise.
"Anyone in our government will admit that it is prohibitively expensive dental care, and that is why it is one of those areas we have been looking at what can we do to improve access and remove barriers, because I do accept it's an area that needs work."
She says the government wants to avoid cuts in health and education.
"That we still see the funding we need to keep services operating well ... we do want to maintain the quality of care New Zealanders have come to expect."