‘Need For Improvement In State Dental Service’

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30528, 25 August 1964, Page 1

‘Need For Improvement In State Dental Service’

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, August 24. There was much roam for improvement in both the school dental and adolescent services, said Dr. J. F. Mangos in his presidential address at the opening of the Dental Association’s conference tonight. .; 4 , ■

.One of the universal criticisms levelled at the school dental service was that the nurses, with their limited training, were obliged to work too much on their own, and the children were not seen regularly enough during the important formative years of their dental lives by a qualified ddntist, said Dr. Mangos. A scheme for the part-time appointment of qualified dentists to the service had been established, but had not developed because of association policy. Dr. Mangos said he thought this question should be re-

examined and , a constant study carried out to find better ways ’to integrate the present service and the dental profession. It might be possible under the present Social Security structure to give parents the opportunity to have their children . voluntarily not compulsorily—examined free by qualified practitioners at certain important periods of their dental lives while they were under treatment by the service. Dr. Mangos said that when the free adolescent service ceased at the age of 16 there was neglect leading to dental infection. Personally, he did not recommend an extension of socialised dental services. It might -be possible, he said, to offer 16-year-olds, on completion of ' their dental benefits treatment, an insurance policy which would provide for the future treatment, t was now obvious that c.ost was the major consideration and not fear that kept patients from seeking dental treatment.

Dr. Mangos said the dental technician industry was languishing at present because many technicians were obsessed with the idea that they should be legally permitted to practise an important part of dentistry, and if they could, not have this, no other form of legislation—not even that which would enable them to organise and regulate their own industry—was acceptable to them. The result was that there was complete chaos within the industry and no incentive for skilled people to make it a career. Dr. Mangos spoke of dental technicians doing illegal work fitting dentures to members of the public who went directly to a technician instead of consulting a dentist "Nearly all technicians welcome such people, who do not realise that the technicians have no qualifications beyond those needed for the mechanical procedures connected with the construction of dentures,” he said.