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181
To devote much time to the treatment of children other
than those who attend as the result of systematic dental
inspection tends to interfere with the routine work and to
impair the efficiency of the Service.
Anæ
sthetics should be employed as a routine measure in
the extraction of permanent teeth. In septic cases the use of
local anaesthetics is liable to be attended with risk; some
provision for the administration of general anaesthetics should
therefore always be made. These should not be administered
by the operator except in cases of special urgency; the services
either of a qualified medical practitioner or of a second dentist
should be secured for this duty.
In all urban areas, and in the larger centres of
population in county areas, permanently equipped dental
clinics should be provided. The accommodation should
include as a minimum—(a) waiting room, (b) operating room,
preferably with a north light, (c) rinsing room, which should
communicate directly with the operating room, and which
can be used also for recovery after the administration of an
anaesthetic. The operating room should be suitably equipped
with dental chair, fittings and instruments, and both this and
the rinsing room should be provided with lavatory basins with
a supply of hot and cold water. Exit from the rinsing room
should not be through the waiting room.
In every area where several school dentists are employed,
it is desirable that one should be appointed to act, under the
School Medical Officer, as supervisor and administrator of the
Dental Service. Such duties would not ordinarily debar the
dentist appointed from sharing in the clinic work.
The dental scheme should be appropriately co-ordinated
with the whole scheme of treatment devised by the Authority,
particularly that part of it concerned with the therapeutics of
the ear, nose and throat, institutions such as Open Air Schools,
and Residential Recovery Schools, with schemes for Maternity
and Child Welfare, Tuberculosis, and other activities of the
Local Authority."
Report by School Medical Officer to Education Authority—
May, 1934.
It is always a difficult matter to decide on the policy to be
adopted with regard to the casual treatment of children whose