Dental Quackery: The Status Quo in India

Dental quackery shares a long history with medical quackery that extends back thousands of years. Poorly educated people are frequently easy targets for quacks who provide unlicensed dental care, which frequently results in complications. Due to a substantial geographic disparity in the accessibility of dental treatment, dentistry in India is experiencing considerable issues with accessibility, even though dentistry has made great strides over the past century.

The population living in rural areas and belonging to lower socioeconomic strata in low- and middle-income countries struggles with a lack of access to proper oral healthcare and illegal oral healthcare practitioners profit by offering their services.

The procedures performed by quacks are incredibly undesirable, harmful, and risky and can have a range of repercussions, including patient death, because they lack a thorough exploratory foundation and professional training received in dentistry institutions.

Commonly performed malpractices by dental quacks encountered by dentists and their opinion on it:

Reasons for the Growth of Dental Quackery in India-

One of the main causes of subsidized dental care is the unequal distribution of dental professionals between the public and private sectors. This regrettable predicament is also evident in India, where primary healthcare approaches in dentistry are absent and, when they are present, the infrastructure provides oral healthcare with limited resources and a workforce.

There is a knowledge gap regarding the significance of oral health, especially among rural communities, because dentistry is not included in any national health policies or national health programs. Due to this, dental quackery is on the rise. In both rural and urban areas of India, quacks can be seen practicing at roadside rest areas and in clinics. The fact that patients must pay out of their own pockets in the majority of developing nations, including India, prevents many patients from accessing dental care.

In India, only 15–25% of the population may access dental care through government programs, while 80–85% must pay out of pocket. Financial accessibility is key in this situation to enabling the growth of dental quack medicine. More expensive procedures are carried out by trained dentists, which are out of the reach of the majority of people. As a result, those in need who cannot afford specialized care tend to turn to quacks.

These quacks promise quick, painless healing. Illiterate consumers sometimes succumb to these unlicensed, unqualified oral healthcare practitioners (OHCP), hoping to find a quick fix for their tooth issues. These inexperienced personnel frequently do more damage than good and, in some cases, cause irreparable injury. Dental quacks primarily serve members of the lower-middle and lower socioeconomic levels, who have little awareness of the standard of care and only seek symptomatic treatment when they are in excruciating pain.

Measures to Tackle Dental Quackery:

• The most crucial issue to concentrate on is expanding access to high-quality dental care in rural communities.

• Together, the Indian government and the DCI should propose a robust policy to end the immoral practice of dental quackery, which is affecting the populace.

• Every single dentist has a crucial role to play in raising awareness of the dangers of seeing a dental quack and in educating people about the value of good oral health.