The reason for the long waiting times is several. This is partly due to a shortage of trained staff, but also to the fact that patients have become more.

- Now, almost no one is eligible for dental treatment who refuses no. Newly arrived young people with very high care needs have also arrived. Then we have also received extended child and youth care. It has gone from 19 years to 23 years, so it's a large age group, says Susanna Lindén Nelson, chief dentist and head of the clinic at the Department of Orthodontics.

In 2014, the total number of patients who were granted dental care and were on a waiting list in Kronoberg County was 920. By 2018, the number of patients on the waiting list had increased to 1679.

Long queue also in other counties

Even in the Kalmar region, the trend is the same with increased queuing times and now young people who do not have an urgent need for dental care have to wait up to 24 months. The waiting time has almost doubled in the last five years in Kalmar and 818 people with non-emergency needs are now in line. Similar queuing times are in the Blekinge region where it is up to three years and in the Jönköping region there is a two-year waiting period. In the Stockholm region, however, you do not have this problem.

- I know that there are long waiting times in several other regions, but we do not have this. Here you can start it fairly directly or within a few months after you receive an assessment and offer of free dental treatment, says Agneta Karsten chief dentist and head of the dental regulation department at Karolinska Institutet in the Stockholm region.

Emergency cases are treated faster

However, young people who have an urgent need for dental care may be queued and admitted within three months.

- We will not let anyone wait if there is a risk that it will damage the teeth. Even children, for example, have such protruding teeth that they have a hard time closing their lips, and can get help within 5 months, says Susanna Lindén Nelson.

Depressed by parents

The long queues have caused the dental regulations in Växjö to be called by upset parents every week when they have telephone time.

- I am met by desperate parents who say that their children do not dare to smile. There are even those who say they do not want to go to school because they have crooked teeth. It feels very sad that you have become so fixated on your appearance. The rules we have with which we can satisfy and give dental care are those that have an dental problem not an appearance problem. We cannot give priority to those who think they have ugly teeth.

Susanna Lindén Nelson thinks that a reasonable waiting time for an un-prioritized orthodontic patient is between one and a half years.

What do you see as a solution to shorten waiting times?

- We need even more dental regulators if we are to meet the requirement that we have to meet, says Susanna Lindén Nelson. And she is supported by Agneta Karsten in Stockholm.

"There is a shortage of orthodontists and those who are there are moving to the big city," she says.