LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume VII, Issue 2127, 8 December 1920, Page 8

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

» STATE DENTAL SEEVICE. To the Editor of THE SUN. Sir, —It may be quite safely assumed that all thinking people are alive to the necessity of a State dental service for school children. That being so, the problem arises, how to render that serivice. All members of the Dental Association who have dealt with the problem stress the fact that the technical treatment, so urgently needed by these children, is of the highest order, and demands proper training, coupled with skill and experience. Every dental surgeon will tell you that the treatment of the teeth of school children is a tax on his ability and judgment. The work which, at this moment, is waiting to be done —and which must be done if any pretence at all is made of attending to the bare dental needs of these children —requires the technical skill and judgment of skilled operators. Unqualified persons (call them by what fancy name you will) cannot possibly .render this service. The training of these people will necessarily be reflected in their work, and, as the work presenting calls for the highest qualifications, we say, emphatically, that these unqualified persons cannot, and must not, do the work. No right-thinking person can possibly advocate the performance of surgical operations on a wholesale scale by unqualified, or even partially qualified, operators. Some few members of our profession have done so, we know, but, fortunately, the overwhelming majority are against such outrageous conduct. One wonders how it is possible for a person to be so wanting in a sense of duty, and so devoid of ethics, as to advocate a principle which is so obviously wrong and wicked. To safeguard the health of the community should be the most sacred duty of the State. In matters of health, it is of the utmost importance to insist l on the highest efficiency. Those of your readers who are parents, or who have had any experience of sickness, know only too well that the very best medical attention, the best nursing attention, or the best dental attention, all too frequently falls short of the mark. Too often a life pays the penalty, - because the best attention possible to obtain falls below requirements. You all know this. Very well, then, what sort of dental service do you expect possible from the wholesale depredations of 200 half-trained women, on your children? We want to prevent this army of incompetents from wrecking the mouths —which means the constitutions —of our school children. It is inconceivable to us that any professional man could stand for such a scheme as the Government proposes. Such a person—there are, fortunately, only a few—must surely be wanting in a sense of duty and fairness to the children concerned. The training of every branch of medical service must ever be kept to the highest standard. To lower the qualifications simply means needless loss of life and suffering. The public pays in both, as well as in cash. It would be well, therefore, for the public to wake up and see that it receives servico rendered and welfare assured, for its hard cash. It should demand a real —a proper—scheme, and not a vote and glory-catch-ing ghost. Let us by all means have a dental service for State school children, but let that service be one that can cope honestly with the work presenting. There are sufficient fully-qualified operators almost immediately available to make a respectable start with a proper scheme. Let the State commence with these, and enlarge and perfect the scheme according to the dictates of experience. The relative cost of the two schemes resolves itself into a balance in favour of the qualified. One scheme (i.e., qualified operators) will, we know, give real value in health return—real value for cash. The unqualified scheme makes a straight line for the dental mutilation of our children —for this is what incompetent dentistry means. It is for the public to say which scheme it will accept.—l am, etc., CHAS. E. ST. JOHN.