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THE SCHOOL DENTAL SERVICE INCORPORATING
THE WORK OF THE MATERNITY AND CHILD WELFARE DENTAL SERVICE
by
S.Maxwell Young, L.D.S., R.C.S.
During the year under review, the staffing position was as fluctuating as in the
previous year, but with the retirement of Miss D.Marsden in the autumn, a gap was made
which will be difficult to fill.
The bus strike affected the Dental Service as it affected other branches of life;
Dental Officers, attendants and patients found it hard or impracticable to attend Clinics,
and in consequence, the amount of treatment given at most sessions during this period fell
considerably, and the total output of work was lower than it would otherwise have been.
Had it not been for the strike, there would have been a gratifying increase in all forms of
treatment; as it was, the only increase shown was the figure for extractions - for toothache
will find a way, even if it has to walk. There were 718 more teeth extracted than in
1957 and 372 more administrations of general anaesthetics, but all other treatment figures
were down on the previous year!s. There were more children inspected and offered treatment
than previously at routine inspections, but the acceptance rate of roughly 75% remains
constant.
Maybury Road Clinic remained unstaffed as in previous years, but an experiment was
carried out in the autumn, which may have beneficial results at some future date. By
courtesy of Bedfordshire County Council we had the use of a Mobile Dental Unit for several
weeks, in which time New City Road Infant and Junior Schools and Elizabeth Fry School for
the Physically Handicapped were inspected and treated. Despite some mechanical snags, the
experiment was highly successful, and staff, children and parents were most appreciative
of this effort to save the inevitable waste of time entailed by visits to a statio Clinic.
The evening sessions for older children were continued, and have been as successful
as in the previous year.
The scheme, started in 1957, of having final-year students from the London Hospital
Dental School attend "Extra-mural Tutorials" at West Ham Lane was carried on throughout
1958, and it has been very gratifying to receive spontaneous letters of thanks from several
of the students after their visits.
The regular "Toddlers Clinios" at the various Centres have now settled into a
routine arrangement which is working very happily for all concerned, and it is hoped that
the seed sown here will bear successful fruit in the future. It is a little disappointing
that the similar arrangement for the expectant and nursing mothers does not show up in
such a bright light. Too many mothers and mothers-to-be attend too seldom and too late.
After half a century of School Health Services it makes one a little sad and despondent
to see so many young women with mouths full of negleoted and deoayed teeth or with complete
dentures. Perhaps it will take another half-century before the consciousness of positive
dental and general health beoomes sufficiently universal for the above pictures to be
placed with Hogarth's cartoons in the Black Museum of history.
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