A group called Dental for All is calling on the government to make dental care free for all adults.
The group, which includes practicing dentists, is launching an online petition Today.
This follows a recent poll conducted by Talbot Mills on behalf of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists which found that around three-quarters of New Zealand adults put off visiting a dentist because of cost, and only 43 per cent had in the past year.
The poll found that 74 percent of people strongly agreed or agreed that adult dental care should be funded in the same way as children. Dental care for children is currently free in New Zealand.
Community dentist Hugh Trengrove said dental care is a basic human right and it is unfair that many people do not have access to it.
Most people should see a dentist for a checkup every year, and not getting checked increases the risk of teeth and gum problems, he said.
“When our teeth and gums are taken care of, our well-being improves. I see terrible cases where poor oral health leads to worse health problems, and the government has the power to step in to put an end to that,” he said in a statement .
The executive director of the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists, Sarah Dalton, said in a statement that dental care was unaffordable for many New Zealanders and “added to the health inequality that plagues our system”.
While Auckland Action Against Poverty coordinator Brooke Stanley Pao said it was time for the government to integrate dental care into the public health system and introduce universal free dental care.
But last November, when the Tooth be tell report was released, Treasury Secretary Grant Robertson said moving directly to providing universal dental care would cost more than $1 billion a year in additional funding.
Dental care had to stand alongside many other priorities in the health sector, he said.
Read Tooth Being Told: The case for universal dental care in Aotearoa, New Zealand
The poll was conducted between January 24 and February 7 this year with 1286 nationally representative people from across New Zealand. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.7 percent.