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13
DENTAL SERVICE.
Question:—What does Mr. Tran, your Senior Dental Surgeon, say
about " your service " ?
Answer :—Mr. Tran writes as follows :—
"Your dental service for the year has shown a marked improvement on recent
years and there is every hope that such improvement will not only be maintained
but surpassed, provided the necessary dental staff is available. The shortage in the
dental profession is a national bogey and gives grave concern to all who visualise a
complete National Dental Service; there are only about one thousand more
dentists in the country today than there were twenty years ago, and it is common
knowledge that in the clinics alone the requirements have increased manifold.
The public today are more dental minded than ever they were, nowhere is this fact
more apparent than in Barking, undoubtedly due to your policy of extending dental
facilities to other than school children.
The object of the School Dental Service is to render the child dentally fit upon
leaving school and at the same time educating him or her to be so dentally minded
as to seek periodical inspection and advice of his or her own free will throughout
adult life. Hitherto, a considerable amount of the school dentist's work has been
wasted in that after leaving school the periodical visit to the dentist has been
allowed to lapse on account of the parent, or the adult patient, having to foot the
bill and in an age when there are so many calls on the pocket it is hardly to be
wondered that dental treatment has been looked upon rather as an unpleasant,
expensive luxury, until such time as an offending molar drives the sufferer to have
an old and faithful servant removed at whatever the price. The advent of the new
Health Act will enable all who wish to avail themselves of the opportunity to have
satisfactory dental treatment free of charge, and this may well prove to be one of the
Act's greatest boons as undoubtedly dental hygiene plays a great part in good health.
To achieve the aim of rendering the child fit upon leaving school, periodical
inspection is essential and conservative treatment, wherever possible and practicable,
should be carried out. The extent to which such conservative treatment should be
carried out in respect of the deciduous or temporary teeth is a matter of considerable
controversy within the dental profession itself. Your dental officers, on the advice
of your Senior Dental Officer, adopt a middle-line course, with due regard to the
child's age and temperament, the general condition of the teeth and their relationship
to the jaws and also the psychological attitude of the parent; hence there can be
no hard and fast rule with regard to the filling of the temporary teeth, each case has
to be weighed up and treated on its own individuality, with the conservation of the
permanent teeth always in mind. It must also be borne in mind that indiscriminate
extraction of the temporary teeth leads to irregularities of the permanent teeth,
often necessitating orthodontic treatment at a later date.