Dental appointments are now available at three Algarve health centres – in Portimão, Faro and Tavira.
The new health service was launched on Monday (November 13) and will be led by three dentists.
Hopes are that the number of dentists working for the National Health Service in the region will increase throughout 2018, said the regional health authority ARS Algarve in a statement.
But to schedule an appointment, patients will have to be referred to a dentist by a family doctor or another doctor within the National Health Service.
In other words, they will only be granted an appointment if they show “signs of risk” or other “clinical situations that the GP deems worthy of an appointment”.
The statement released by ARS Algarve adds that the goal of the initiative is to “guarantee that people with chronic conditions in terms of oral health have access to dental care and to evaluate the state of oral health” in the region.
