There is one dentist for every 2,000 Samoans when it comes to oral healthcare in the nation, says the Samoa Dental Association President, Sala Dr. Ioanatana Faatonu.

The association held its annual general meeting and Scientific Seminar on Thursday at the Samoan Cultural Centre at Malifa on Thursday.

Sala said the oral health faculty was facing some challenges and it had to do with capacity and human resources. He said the demand for oral healthcare was increasing on a daily basis and dentists in Samoa were doing their best. 

He told the dentists that there will always be challenges but they would need to adapt to it. According to Sala, oral health was a big concern in the nation, and added Government policies in the past were not adhered to and this impacted negatively on the dental division.

Prime Minister Fiame, Fiamē Naomi Mataʻafa, who was present in her capacity as the acting Minister for Healthy, said some of the problems in the health sector were due to policies not being followed.

“Well, the president talked about their challenges and I was acknowledging that, I did make reference to the policy of how the Government had separation of the policy units and operational units, every other sector was doing but the health sector failed to do it,” Fiamē said.

“If you have a policy, if you don’t work to make it happen it won’t happen so the question is why did they not follow Government policy.”

Fiamē also called on the association to revive mobile clinics in schools so oral health problems could be nipped in the bud and recalled how there was a dental office in her school when she was in school.

She added that the health and education sectors were priorities for her Government.

Sala, in an interview, said the challenges for the public health sector were in capacity, human resources, and resources in general.

“We have a population of roughly 200,000, that is one dentist to 2000 Samoans. We are trying to minimize that,” he said.

The last survey done on the state of oral health in Samoa showed a high prevalence of dental diseases which had a correlation with non-communicable diseases. Oral health in Samoa has followed the same gradient as NCDs.

“There is a still long way to go in terms of oral health programs there are contributing factors to that, and the onus will be health is on as well,” said Sala.

He said all of this will come down to better funding, better equipping of health facilities, and ensuring that there was a pathway to entice more medical students to take up dental health care.