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DENTAL CARE FOR THE PRIORITY CLASSES
Mr. G.C.H. Kramer, Chief Dental Officer, reports as follows:—
We have been able to maintain the service of previous years, whereby the priority classes who seek
treatment in our clinics are genuinely accorded priority and receive-necessary attention with virtually
no delay. However, an imbalance in the proportion of our total time allocated to this aspect of
our duties at the expense of the severely overloaded school dental service, needed to be adjusted
in spite of the undoubted value in treating pre-school children early and regularly.
A reasonable allocation of time available has been regarded as up to 10% for the priority service
and this we attained three or four years ago, but in 1967 this had risen to 12% and showed signs
of going higher when we were failing by a large margin to deal adequately with school children.
By deliberately making less attempt to recruit new patients, the percentage in 1968 was at the
desired level of 10%, but in the year now under review the pendulum has swung rather too far and
the percentage is down to 8.7. At no time, however, have we failed to accept patients who wanted
us to treat them.
The total number of sessions employed in the priority service was lower by 32 than the previous
year, although the amount of treatment fell by rather less than could have been expected. For
expectant and nursing mothers there was virtually no change apart from a welcome further reduction
in the number of teeth extracted, and there now seems to be a stable level of demand for this section
of the community.
For pre-school children there is a large unsatisfied need, although not demand, for treatment, and
this is the section of the population who most need to be helped by fluoridation of the water supplies
so that, without any effort at all, their dental needs would be drastically reduced. We would, as a
result, have a school entry bringing with them a less utterly unmanageable need for treatment.