Patient Demographics for Student Training Clinic at Wits Dental Hospital

Methods: Patient admission records between 2010/2011 to 2012/2013 financial year were reviewed. These were categorised according to new or recall consultation, the hospital billing status, and referral status. The hospital billing status was further categorised according to patient classification prescribed by Unified Patients Fee Structure (UPFS). The Children under the age of 6 years and the pensioners (H0) are treated for free. Patients classified as H1 are unemployed, H2 are employed but not on medical aid and Private patients are employed with medical aid.

Results: 95115 patients were seen in the selected three year period, 56% new and 44% recall.  5% of the new patients were referrals from private dental practitioners, prisons, district clinics and interprovincial. In general, it is the pensioners (18%), children (2%), employed individuals (35%), unemployed individuals (45%) that seek dental care at our oral health centre.  

Conclusions: Our training institution is flooded by patients requiring dental care and it is difficult to have limitations placed on acceptance of certain categories of patients since this can affect student training and dental training hospitals are the only source of specialized dental care for many patients. The challenge that the students face is the lack of compliance with recall visits which can be attributed to the highest percentage of unemployed patients. Whilst there are enough patients for student teaching and training, the challenge is to limit the intake whilst not compromising access to dental care.