Keeping Good Teeth

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 639, 16 April 1929, Page 8

Keeping Good Teeth

Useful Work in School Clinics

WITH the approval of Cabinet, the work of the school dental clinics throughout New Zealand is to be extended Already its scope in Auckland is influential and thousands of children in the province have received its benefits. Ihe relief dental department of the Auckland Hospital Board also is widely used by children.

'JpHE aim of the school dental service is to ensure a race of New Zealanders possessing that superb physical asset, sound teeth. “Catch them young” is an apt motto for those in charge of its work, which has spread from a modest beginning in Wellington in 1921 to a Dominion-wide influence in child education to-day. This motto is not a hollow' platitude, for in some of the Auckland schools, tiny tots of two and three years of age —hardly old enough to cry. let alone sit complacently in a dental chair — are brought in, like lambs to the slaughter, and there undergo their ri? rl? riz

7% 7-K Vr rr T- -T 3K rfe first experience of the dentist. Later in life, when they are old enough to understand, they entertain grateful recollections of their early introduction to the surgery. In the whole of the Dominion there are S 9 clinic centres and 54 sub-bases. In Auckland district 22 clinics are established, some with one nurse, others with two. Tw r o more clinics are about to be opened. The expansion of the system is necessarily restricted by the number of nurses trained for service. At the beginning of the scheme 25 girls were commissioned for tw'o years’ service, and since that time the number of trainees has increased annually until this year 40 nurses started their course.

i Upon completion of their training the nurses are sent to various parts of the Dominion to take charge of clinics. Even, the rapid growth of the deutai service has been insufficient to cope with the children’s requirements, and there is necessarily a large field left unworked in many Auckland schools. Children are taken as soon as they enter school —some are brought by their parents before they are of school age—and each child found to be in need of attention is followed progressively through until it reaches the fourth standard. After that stage, the pupil must find his or her own dental treatment. ATTITUDE OF PARENTS Hitherto the work has been confined to public schols. The Prime Minister, Sir Joseph Ward, has announced, however, that all schools will now be embraced by its operations. This will mean the inclusion of denominational and private schools, and in Auckland alone will incur a big call on the service. The introduction of a dental clinic to a school is primarily a question for the parents themselves through their school committee. The committee recommends the establishment of the clinic by offering to pay one-third of the cost, and the department provides the remaining two-thirds and sets up the clinic. Pull consent of parents must be obtained before dental treatment is given the children. Some mothers protest strongly, and send curt notes: “How dare you interfere with my child’s teeth?” Mothers blame the fathers for lack of consent; fathers blame the mothers. Most parents, however, readily agree to this free service. RELIEF DENTAL WORK Dental work among the children of Auckland is not confined entirely to the schools. The dental relief department at the Auckland Hospital Board, under the superintendent, Mr. H. C. Gleeson, handles anything up to 800 attendances in a month, and recently has been putting on 130 new cases a month. About 35 calls in a day is the average, over 90 per cent, of the callers being children. -This department is purely a relief organisation for the people of the city who cannot afford dental treatment. It in no way interfei'es with private practice, and patients are treated on their merits similarly with those who apply at the hoard’s office for general relief. Small charges are made to those who can pay, but treatment is not refused when cases are urgent. At present the surgery is booked for a month ahead and accomodation is severely taxed. This establishment, in fact, is the largest and most comprehensive dental practice in the North Island. In this way Young Auckland is being reared with a fine appreciation of what it means to possess good teeth.