Fluoridation Latest News
Date: 29-Jun-2017
The most recent fluoridation update was provided in e-flash #179 and since the election of the current State Government, the issue has been confused and plagued by misinformation. Following a meeting with Queensland Health staff this morning, we are now able to offer the following more tangible update. This comes with a disclaimer; the proposed legislative amendments have been approved for industry consultation and final decisions are still subject to Cabinet debate, and some of these proposals are inconsistent with statements made in the past by ministers who will be involved in that debate.
Regional water service providers which are named in the Fluoridation Regulation will have received a letter from the department yesterday which included summaries of proposed changes to the Act and Regulation, the draft Amendments themselves and various other documents to aid interpretation. Providers have been given until tomorrow, 18 October to provide feedback. We understand from the department that information will be accepted until early next week. This is clearly a ridiculous consultation process.
Having stepped through the documents, they do for the most part reflect what the department has been endeavouring to implement for some time and there are no obvious shocks when considering the general policy positions the government has been able to articulate – i.e. supportive of fluoridation, mostly not supportive of unreasonable cost burdens on communities or fluoridation where there are potential risks. The amendments do not create a universal, level playing field for fluoridation, however they are in our opinion, a reasonable attempt to address the heavy-handed approach to the fluoridation roll out in the past. However, fluoridation is here to stay for many providers and not all members will be happy with the outcome. Some of the issues are quite scheme-specific and so a generic summary is not easy to produce, but some general principles are listed below. If you are concerned or would like more information, please call Dave Cameron on 0407761991 or Rob Fearon on 0428300208.
General principles:
- The amendments are expected to be passed before the end of the year, meaning exemption applications under the new provisions can commence shortly thereafter. The department will produce guidelines and potentially a template.
- Some providers with current exemption applications lodged under existing provisions will have these applications approved. Others will be held over to be addressed under the new provisions. In short, if your organisation has lodged an exemption application, it will not be required to do so again but may need to provide some additional information.
- As previously reported, there is no provision for stopping fluoridation where is as already taking place.
- Where works are “nearing completion” (as defined under the amendment), those schemes will be ineligible for exemption.
- Providers servicing a population of greater than 10,000 (in any manner – using a very inclusive and convoluted definition) will be required to fluoridate but will have their timeframe extended to December 2013.
- All other schemes will have a completion date of 31 December 2013 and will also be eligible to apply for exemption. The exemption criteria have been broadened so that there are a greatly expanded number of situations in which exemptions are possible.
- It is unclear whether costs will be reimbursed for schemes that receive exemptions in the future. There are some indications that this is the case but we cannot locate written evidence.
- There is no government position on financial support for ongoing operations and maintenance for small schemes, ongoing professional development etc. This is a separate issue to be considered in future.
Broad exemption criteria examples include but are not limited to:
- Where there is unlikely to be an oral health benefit to 1000 or more people, for example due to it being unpalatable
- Where there is an unreasonable cost burden and the scheme services less than 10,000 people
- Where it is very difficult to retain suitably experienced staff
- Where it is consistently difficult to attend and monitor dosing due to access issues
- Where the source water has a high temperature that interferes with monitoring
- Where there are existing water quality issues
qldwater does not intend to hold the usual technical teleconferences or similar processes to respond to these proposed amendments due to the timeframe. We will however assist any members that wish to respond and are starting to make contact with providers we know have been awaiting some of these decisions.
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