Ban wanted on dental nurses filling teeth

Press, 20 August 1983, Page 13

Ban wanted on dental nurses filling teeth

PA Auckland Dental nurses should be banned from filling teeth, according to a visiting Swedish dentist, Dr Per Axelsson. Instead they should concentrate on preventive dentistry and the very few necessary fillings should be done by dentists, he said. Dr Axelsson is the director of the Swedish Public Health Service preventive dentistry section, the director of the Karlstad Dental Hygiene School, and also has a private practice in Karlstad. He recently addressed a conference of the International Association of Den-

tai Research in Sydney and was invited to New Zealand by the New Zealand Society of Periodontology. , Dr Axelsson said dental caries which cause tooth cavities, periodontal diseases, and inflammation of the gums often resulting in the loss of teeth, were the most widespread debilitating diseases known to man. They were also the most preventable. “If an infectious disease, for which the cause was well known and preventive measures were well known, affected any other part of the body it would not be tolerated,” he said. “We would not accept our

fingers slowly rotting off and being replaced by plastic materials or a rotten nose being replaced with a false nose. Why should we accept rotten and loosening teeth replaced with amalgum and dentures? “Intact teeth and healthy gums are a beautiful and useful part of the body. It is a pity that in developed countries about one in three people over 60 have false teeth and among 40-year-olds about eight to 10 permanent teeth out of 32 are lost. Dr Axelsson said Sweden had moved from a treat-ment-based dental system to a prevention-based one.