Shania Shayal Prasad 
Fiji is facing a critical shortage of dentists, with one dentist currently serving approximately 13,000 people.
This far exceeds the recommended standard of one dentist per 10,000 people.
This gap, with only 71 registered dentists in the country, is raising serious concerns about limited access to dental care in the public health system.
The Health Ministry is working on workforce planning to address this issue, though creating new dental officer positions will require formal approval backed by data.
Head of Oral Health Dr. Jone Turagaluvu state that while all current dental officer positions are filled, more resources are needed.
“To justify the need and now we have to prepare good figures and data for the Ministry to be convinced that there is need for them to submit further to appropriate offices for the increase in the number of dentists in Fiji.”
Assistant Minister for Health Penioni Ravunawa acknowledged the need to review staff establishment.
“We will just formulate a framework, working along with WHO to start the process. The process goes like this, you input all your servers that you’ve been doing in the last 5-10 years and also the demographics and the number of officers that are serving in different health center’s, hospitals, nursing stations.”
Ravunawa stated that they would continue to prioritize workforce expansion and improved service delivery to meet the growing population’s needs.
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