Correspondence Address:
Navpreet Kaur
Department of Public Health Dentistry, K D Dental College and Hospital, Mathura, Uttar Pradesh
India

Full Text

Dear Editor,

Effective public private partnerships operate on a system of shared values, purposes, and accountability. Their combined efforts produce an impact greater than the sum of the individual parts. This letter is to add some information to the article "public-private partnership to enhance oral health in India," [1] which has nicely covered aspects of the topic from literature.

Government contributions to public-private partnership can be in the form of subsidies i.e., giving funds or commodities to private groups to provide specific services, leasing or rental where government offers the use of its facilities to private organization such as renting primary health center to an NGO to provide services to people in the area, and privatization where government offers the use of its facilities to a private group such as private hospital on the understanding that the hospital would provide services to the population. These partnership mechanisms may not work without quality assurance and positive enabling environment. To enable the same, steps need to be undertaken to ensure that providers are adequately trained and supervised, political commitment should be secured, and the government agencies should ensure that the private providers are regulated and monitored. [2]

Among numerous challenges that exist for the provision of delivering oral health care is availability of adequate skilled dental manpower. An optimum oral health cannot be achieved without contribution made by dental auxiliaries. There exists a serious mal-distribution of the dental professionals in India. Under such circumstances, services of dental auxiliary in meeting dental needs of deprived segments of population is significant. These professionals provide optimal dental care to community more economically. [3] The government should urge fresh graduates to practice in rural areas and provide more incentives to them. The public health dentists should take the initiative of adopting more community oriented oral health programs to increase the awareness among rural population. [4]

Apart from role of media in oral health education as mentioned in this article, other approaches in oral health education and health promotion such as social marketing, and parents and school program can be utilized. Voluntary sector that includes community groups and religious groups, education department i.e., teachers, education planners, have an important role in imparting oral health education to masses and encouraging community participation. [5] These points when taken into consideration can strengthen public private partnerships.

References