DENTAL DISEASE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 89, 16 April 1938, Page 5

DENTAL DISEASE

NEED FOR INTENSIVI' RESEARCH

I Ter Press Association.]

WELLINGTON April 12. The importance of measures to prevent dental disease and the urgent necessity for intensive research into its causes, were stressed by Mr. Herbert S. Wilkinson, secretary, giving evidence before the Select Committee on Public Health and Superannuation this afternoon on behalf of the New Zealand Dental Association. Among the matters requiring immediate investigation witness named soil deficiencies, consumption of deleterious foods, both locally produced and imported, and under-consumption of essential foods. He emphasised that appreciation of the causes of dental disease, with which were related factors common to disease in general, would help towards the achievement to complete national health. Steps should be taken to limit the consumption of foodstuffs which favoured the occurrence of dental caries. The incidence of this condition was extremely high in the Dominion.

Among the proposals submitted to the committee were the following:— (!) Expansion of the State dental service to cover treatment of all primary school children and all preschool children. It was strongly recommended that treatment should be made compulsory. (2) A Government subsidy of live shillings per filling when made by a private practitioner. This would be available to families whose incomes do not exceed £230 a year. (3) The Government to take over the existing dental departments of the various hospitals so as to treat the indigent and pensioners only. “We disapprove of the dental benefits of the national health insurance scheme being administered as in England through the medium of approved societies,” said witness. “Such a system would be intolerable both to the public and to the profession. The scheme should be administered directly by a Government department, preferably separate from the Health Department.”