A few months ago, the Generalitat de Catalunya announced the incorporation of a new figure in primary care centers (CAP): oral hygienists. Throughout this year, it is expected to incorporate 365 professionals to treat oral health, as well as to monitor and prevent caries and other low-complexity pathologies.
These health professionals will be integrated into the dental units, currently made up of dentists from Primary and Community Care (APiC) and auxiliary nursing care technicians.
The objective is that children and adolescents under 15 years of age, the population with disabilities, pregnant women and groups in a situation of socioeconomic vulnerability, as well as people in an oncological process or at risk of suffering from oral cancer, have access to this service, until now. largely taken over by private clinics.
The arrival of dental hygienists at primary care centers will not only improve the quality of the dental service in public health, but will also end inequality between different social groups. According to the 2021 Health Survey of Catalonia (ESCA), inequality by economic level and education influences the assessment made of oral health.
The incorporation of the figure of the oral hygienist in public health was a historical claim of the sector and of the dental health professional training centers, which celebrate this measure. Mari Carmen Montenegro, professor of oral hygiene at the Escola Pejoan and member of the Association of Oral Hygienists of Catalonia (Hides), points out that it was a "very necessary" measure and highlights: "Finally the public administration values the function as it deserves of the hygienist in the prevention and promotion of health”.
The new measure also offers oral hygiene students a new job opportunity in the public sector and improves employment expectations in the sector, since the Higher Technician in Oral Hygiene cycle is one of the most demanded by the market.
According to the SEPE, it is one of the professions in the health sector with the highest employability percentage, with more than 5,000 contracts signed per year, only ahead of nursing assistants, pharmacy and parapharmacy, and Diagnostic Imaging and Nuclear Medicine. .
Information prepared with the collaboration of Escola Pejoan
