The agreements, between several dozen municipalities and the five regional health administrations, were signed at the “Oral Health for All” ceremony and are part of a project to have dentists at health centres.
The pilot experiment began in 2016 at 13 health centres and was extended to the current 63 oral health offices in primary health care across the country.
The Government intends to create at least one oral health office per cluster of health centres by the end of its term of office, the Health Ministry said, adding that “as a result of the success of the pilot experiments, the Ministry has decided to go further and extended its ambition with a view to promoting equity and proximity and increasing and improving oral health care coverage at primary health care level.”
The Government’s decision has been welcomed by the Order of Dentists. The head of the Order, Orlando Monteiro da Silva, said that the involvement of municip-alities in the issue of oral health had been a long-standing wish.
“Nowadays municipalities already see this type of involvement as fundamental, and now it is valued by the population,” he told reporters as part of a visit to a dental unit in Lisbon on Monday.
Monteiro da Silva visited the Monte Pedral health centre in Lisbon with World Dental Federation (FDI) president Kathryn Kell, who started a two-day visit to Portugal on Monday to learn about the national scene.
The head of the Order stressed that there is a consensus in Portugal on the need to promote oral health care, with several parties having similar ideas, and added that he hoped to see this consensus reflected in the next state budget.
Headquartered in Geneva, the FDI represents more than 1 million dentists from around 130 countries, aiming to improve the oral health of populations, which is a major challenge given the differences between countries, according to Kell.
The federation also said it intends to make a diagnosis on oral health in global terms.