Expatica news

More Flemish dentists in the Netherlands

21 August 2007

AMSTERDAM – More and more recent graduates of dental programmes in Belgium are setting up practice in the Netherlands. They opt to open an office over the border because of better pay and more convenient working hours, the Flemish Dental Association (VVT) says in the Telegraaf on Tuesday.

The VVT says half of the 80 graduates of dental medicine programmes last year have started work in the Netherlands. The Netherlands is facing a shortage of dentists in fact.

The Dutch Association for the Promotion of Dentistry calculates that 400 new dentists set up practice in the Netherlands each year. Half of these come from abroad.

The shortage of dentists in the Netherlands has arisen because of the increase in the number of elderly people who still have their own teeth. The demand for cosmetic treatments, like tooth whitening, is also increasing.

Furthermore the population of dentists is also ageing. In 2004 40 percent of dentists in the Netherlands were above the age of 50. This has emerged from a survey by Van Es Marketing Services, the newspaper reports.

[Copyright Expatica News 2007]

Subject: Dutch news, Belgian news