GROWTH OF DENTAL WORK IN SCHOOLS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 7, 13 October 1948, Page 5

GROWTH OF DENTAL WORK IN SCHOOLS

Clinics' Success Amongst Children Guest speaker at the Whakatane Parent-Teacher Association’s meeting on Monday evening, Mr J. G. Espie, Principal Dental Officer of the South Auckland Health District, gave an interesting and informative talk on the National 1 Dental Service.

In outlining the growth of the service, Mr Espie explained that in 1905 the New Zealand Dental Association realised that something must be done for the treatment of school children, because the state of the children’s mouths was not good. Then during the examination of recruits for World War I it was discovered that a large proportion of the recruits had dental defects and also were physically r unfit because of dental defects. The School Dental Service was commenced in 1919 as a branch of the Education Department; In 1920 Colonel Hunter was appointed the first Director of the Dental Service. He started the School Dental Nurse system and that was the beginning of our present system. By 1921 the first 25 young girls assembled in Wellington to be" trained as dental nurses. It was realised that no Dental Service could hope to be successful without an intensive dental health programme and Colonel Hunter founded the educational programme that is familiar to school children to day under the three headings (1) The .tooth brush, (2) The self-cleans-ing type of food, (3) The control of sugar intake. , In the first 25 years of dental service much has been accomplished. Young children have been trained to .accept dentistry as a routine and the ntaj ority of children leave school dentally fit. More children than ever have been passed on to the practitioner, but too many have been lulled into a sense of security because they do not have toothache and have failed to make regular appointments with their dentist. This is most unfortunate as the period between 12 and 17 is the time when the breatest amount of decay occurs in the teeth.

Mr Espie outlined the Dental Benefits Scheme whereby today girls and boys can be enrolled for Dental Benefits after leaving the School Dental Clinic up to their 16th birthday. We are now very short of dental nurses, he said, and, as our School Dental Service is unique and in no other country are young girls trained to specialise on a particular part of dental work, we cannot hope that the Government, will bring in dental nurses to cope with increased population. We must recruit girls in New Zealand for this work. Mr Espie stated that the necessary qualifications are (1) School Leaving Certificate, (2) A real love of children and (3) Manipulative ability. V An excellent film showed the training and work of Dental Nurses and a short film showed the Mobile Clinic and a Children’s Dental Pantomime. Parents and friends had the pleasure of hearing the High School girls sing three numbers—“ All in the April Evening,” “My Mother Bids Me Bind My Hair,” and “The Skye Boat Song.” A very hearty vote of thanks was accorded the conductor, Mr T. H. Wilson, for kindly arranging these items and to the girls for their enjoyable singing; also to Mrs Lovelock who acted as accompaniste.