The clinics, funded at a cost of $3 million in the first year, will offer services to about 22,000 people.

Dental clinics offering preventive and curative front-line care to people with low incomes or living in remote regions will be put in place in Quebec.

Five pilot projects are planned in Ste-Anne-des-Monts in Gaspésie, in Gatineau, in Val-des-Sources in the Estrie region, and two clinics on the island of Montreal, Quebec Health Minister Christian Dubé announced Monday.

The five clinics will get $3 million in the first year to serve about 22,000 people. The Montreal clinics are the Dentaville clinic at Notre-Dame Hospital, which will get $883,166 to hire two dentists, a dental hygienist and three other staff, and the Jim Lund Dental Clinic at the Welcome Hall Mission, which will get $153,513 for a part-time dentist and assistant.

“Unfortunately, with the system that we know, there are many people who go without oral care and shouldn’t have to,” Dubé said. “It’s up to us as the government to find a solution for that.”

The pilot projects represent a first phase toward reducing inequalities in dental care and integrating dental care into the health system. If successful, a second phase could extend services to 600,000 people, or about seven per cent of the population of Quebec.

No dates have been set for further phases.

Asked if this investment means the government plans to expand universal coverage of dental care, Dubé explained that it’s more to solve local problems.

“We can act in the regions with local issues. That’s our approach,” he said. “Here (in the Gaspésie), it’s a challenge to attract dentists. It’s not just an issue of remuneration.”

Ste-Anne-des-Monts mayor Simon Deschênes noted that the Haute-Gaspésie region lost its last dentist in August. The local health authority will acquire the dentist’s office and hire two dentists and two dental hygienists.

Currently in Quebec, public dental care is offered to children under age 10, residents of CHSLD long-term care homes and those on a social assistance program.

Quebec’s order of dentists said the announcement was “a first step toward recognizing the importance of oral care among the whole of health care for Quebecers.”

It said it partially answers a long-standing demand of the order to integrate preventive dental care in the public system. President Guy Lafrance said there was still a lot of work to be done.

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