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There aren’t enough dentists in many areas of Alabama.
According to information from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the areas of Cleburne and Calhoun Counties needs to add a minimum of six dental practitioners in order to be removed from a list of areas that has a shortage of dentists needed to treat low-income patients
This is a statewide problem for Alabama, however. There are 67 counties in the state and all but two—Shelby and Madison County—lack the proper number of dentists for the population size.
The problem for people living in Alabama is that there is only one college that has a dental program. The University of Alabama at Birmingham admits 55 students into its program every year. This number, however, is only about 8 percent of full-time dentists necessary to provide dental care to low-income people in the state.
The Southeast Regional Medical Center wants to have medical classes for the first time by 2013. This will help the issue, but many more dentists are needed to solve the problem.
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