– The Government, through the Ministry of Health, has authorized in the Council of Ministers on Monday the distribution of 374,319 euros to Ceuta and Melilla through INGESA (National Institute of Health Management) to promote the development of the Oral Health Plan, which will benefit 71,564 people in the region.
The acting Minister of Health, José Miñones, has assessed the social impact and the transformative nature of this new transfer of the Oral Health Plan, which amounts to 68,058,000 euros for the beneficiary autonomous communities and cities and whose distribution proposal will now be submitted to the Interterritorial Council of the National Health System (CISNS).
“This government believes, defends and works for a free, universal and accessible National Public Health System,” said Miñones. In this regard, it has argued that the expansion of the common portfolio of oral health services in the National Health System (SNS) will serve to break the existing relationship between the socioeconomic situation and the prevalence and severity of oral diseases and conditions.
This new transfer of funds of more than 68 million is in addition to last year, when the Government of Spain allocated more than 44 million euros from the General State Budgets to communities to improve oral health in their territories. In total, the Executive has already distributed more than 112 million euros to the autonomies for this purpose.
Thirteen million beneficiaries in Spain
This plan expands public health coverage progressively, including dental care for girls and boys up to age 14 (in two tranches, from 6 to 14 and from 0 to 5 years), pregnant women, head and neck cancer patients, adults with intellectual disabilities, and people with neuromuscular diseases. The Ministry of Health estimates that the number of beneficiaries is close to 13 million people, according to population data from the INE.
In this way, Health promotes the homogenization of oral health care services throughout the national territory, ensuring equity in their access. At the same time, it increases the common services that, until now, were not provided by public health, with a fundamentally preventive approach and prioritizing groups.
The updating of the common portfolio of services in oral health falls within the framework of the Strategic Framework for Primary and Community Care, promoted by the Ministry of Health to strengthen the first level of care as a fundamental pillar of the SNS and first door of health care for all citizens.
The actions include periodic reviews, preventive treatments such as tartrectomies, application of remineralizing, antiseptic and desensitizing substances, and the sealing of graves and fissures for all prioritized groups.
Likewise, restorative actions are covered, such as closures in lesions that do not associate irreversible pulp damage, pulp treatments and the relocation, stabilization and ferulization of incisive teeth and definitive canines in case of traumatisms of the child and youth population and people over 14 years of age with intellectual disability or with a disability limiting the mobility of the upper limbs.