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Auxiliary, coped with the majority of the patients living in the
Northern side of the Borough, and at Mayesbrook Clinic for the
South Redbridge area.
Dental Auxiliaries have proved very useful for very young
children because often these patients need great patience for
a small amount of work.
It has been the aim of the dental service for several years
to increase the number of young children inspected and treated.
It is important that children should commence attending a
Dental Surgeon at a very early Age, usually not later than two
and a half years old. At this age very little treatment is
required and the child is not frightened by more drastic treatment
which would occur if it was left until school age. Also at
this age dental health education with the parent can have more
lasting benefit. More mothers are having their children seen at
an earlier age than a few years hijo. This is occurring in the
general dental service but we tend to receive more difficult
children for treatment. Often they are referred by private
practitioners who are unwilling to spend the excessive time of
treating these patients.
As already stated, more expectant and nursing mothers attend
a general dental practitioner and following this the number of
these patients treated in the Borough continued to drop. This
is a good sign in that at least these patients are receiving
treatment and so becoming more conscious of dental disease.
The statistics for 1967 show that in the Borough the total
visits made by children under five to clinics increased by 12%
with a corresponding increase of 12% in the number of fillings.
It is also worth noting that the number of extractions for
these children dropped by 28%. This fact shows that if only
more parents would take their children for conservative treatment
the extraction of deciduous teeth would decrease considerably.
We can only increase the number of small children attending
dental clinics by co-opting the help of medical and nursing
staff and all persons that are in contact with parents.
Dental health education continued on similar lines to the
previous years. Towards the end of 1967 the Dental Auxiliary
commenced dental health in Day Nurseries. This seems to be
very popular and could do a great deal of good. I hope to see
this expand to all Nurseries in the Borough during 1968. Dental
health education also continued in Clinics at Infant Welfare
Centres, Ante-Natal, Post-Natal and Relaxation Clinics. One