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15
On several occasions during the past few years I have directed
attention to the desirability of providing some dental treatment in
connection with our scheme of Maternity and Child Welfare and
Tuberculosis. I have raised the subject in Committee and to
individual members of the Committee, and I have referred to the
need for it in Annual Reports. There is a vast amount of handicapping
and unnecessary suffering, malnutrition, and disease,
resulting from the neglect of dental advice and treatment; and so,
many Health Authorities are now providing for dental services in
connection with all the above-mentioned branches of public health
work.
Poverty and indifference lead to the neglect of the valuable
services which a dentist can render, and it is not surprising that
nearly 40 per cent. of the children commencing school are found to
be suffering from considerable dental decay.
The establishing of a Dental Clinic would be the most
costly method of providing the necessary treatment; and the
most economical method would appear to be either to arrange
with the Education Authority for the use of a joint clinic, or to make
special arrangements with a local dentist, by which he would treat
at his own consulting room those patients sent by the Medical Officers
of the Welfare Centres and Tuberculosis Dispensary. The latter
arrangement would save expenses of equipment and maintenance
of dental instruments and appliances, and would suffice for Stoke
Newington.
Many of the patients would pay the whole of the reduced fees
charged by the dentist; the very large majority would pay some
portion of those fees ; and there would be but a few necessitous
cases in which the whole of the cost would fall upon the Council.
Of course, similar precautions to those taken in connection with
the gratuitous provision of milk would apply to last-mentioned
cases.
The services of the Invalid Children's Aid Association have
been frequently obtained to get delicate children, and also those