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The progress of the Orthodontic Work under Mr. Evans' guiding care is all that can he
desired. Mr. Evans has absorbed the Public Health spirit and from the amount he gets through,
his work might almost be classed among the sweated industries, as his morning sessions average
some 65 cases. This may seem appalling at first sight, but when it is realised how rapidly these
cases can be visualised and the treatment dictated to the stenographer at the chair side, it will be
realised that this is not as formidable as it appears, but it is too much.
Let me here draw attention to the way in which the amount of work is got through. In
the same way it takes an amazing number of accessory units to keep the firing line going in an
army, so in organising work such as this it must be realised that value for money is obtained best
if the spear head of the attack on dental disease (that is the Dental Surgeon) is saved every kind
of work except that of making the expert decisions for which he is appointed.
I find that in the various Clinics I have seen the Dental Surgeon's time is so often taken up
with doing work which could be just as well, if not better, done by a Junior Clerk at a salary of
say, £80 per year, whilst the highest paid professional officer could be left available for the work
which he alone can do.
I am convinced by what I have seen that one of the crying needs of the Dental work
throughout the country is the provision for the Dental Surgeons of adequate clerical assistance
so that he can get on with the work which he is really appointed for.
As year after year goes by so we receive complaints from a certain small section of the
parents with regard to the time they have to wait in the Dental Waiting Room.
It does not seem to matter what appointments one makes, certain parents seem to have no
morals whatever with regard to the keeping of their appointments. They will turn up an hour
before their appointment time, full of hope that they will be able to elbow their way in front of
someone else if they come early enough, and the fact that this is not allowed produces recriminations
and scenes and ructions of various kinds in the Waiting Room before other parents.
These same parents, if they paid a fee for the privilege of having their children's teeth
attended to privately, would not mind waiting for an appointment in the Private Waiting Room of
a Dentist they are paying. And the higher the fee they paid the more content they would be to
wait without a grumble. But there is a certain small section who because an Officer draws his
income out of the Rates feel that it is their peculiar prerogative to show, as they conceive it, their
superiority as his master by kicking up a fuss if the Dentist's findings do not coincide with their
ideas of the treatment needed and seem to take a malignant delight in metaphorically wiping their
boots on an officer whom, as they generally put it in their letters of complaint " we pay for out of
the Rates."
Everything has been done to try and bring some kind of order, whilst at the same lime
reducing as far as practicable the waiting time of the parents, realising that their time is like ours,
valuable.
The Dental Surgeon reports as follows :—
During the year the pressure of the increasing demands of the Dental Scheme has continued.
A third Dental Clinic Clerk Attendant was appointed in April to relieve senior officers of as much
simple routine work as possible.
There was some difficulty in getting the second whole time Dental Surgeon's post
established, and in order to keep the work going at all efficiently a number of sessions had to be
put in by temporary officers.
The work divides itself into sections :—
(1) Inspection.
(2) Conservative Treatment.
(3) Treatment by Extractions, with and without general anaesthetics.
(4) Orthodontic Treatment.
(5) Other Operations.
Inspections.
.
These have had to be cut down owing to insufficient staff in the first place, and it was also
impossible to utilise fully the services of two Dentists working in one room. In view of this it was
useless to inspect and bank up large numbers awaiting treatment when the condition of the
children would differ considerably from the inspection finding when they eventually got appointments
for treatment.
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