SOLDIERS' TEETH

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2609, 3 November 1915, Page 6

SOLDIERS' TEETH

TREATMENT OF RECRUITS A SCHEME ESTABLISHED A scheme has been finally adopted by tho Defenco Department for giving dental treatment to recruits rejcctcd ill the medical examination because of bad or insufficient teeth.

The Minister of Defencc had a conference yesterday afternoon with Professor Pickerill, head the Dental School in Otago University, and Mr. Hunter, of Dunedin, representing the New Zealand Dental Association. Tlio Government have decided to utilise the services of the Dental Association, members of which are willing to assist the Defenco Department, in tho first instanco in the examination of recruits. After a mcdical officer has examined a man, he will be handed over to a dentist, who will examine his mouth, and decido whether his. teeth aro good enough, or whether they can be fixed up well enough, to provide for officient mastication. _ Those men whose teeth require attentiou will bo sent to members of the Dental Association for treatment, and a rota of these practitioners will be arranged so that no one man will get an unfair proportion of these soldier patients. If a man is in a position to pay for his own teeth, ho will have to pay. If it can be shown that he is not in a position to pay, then the Defence Department will pay for him. In some cases where the work to bo done may take some timo, treatment will bo begun outside the camp and 'be completed after the man is in camp. The dentists in camp will be in close touch with those in civilian practice, and the charts of the men on whom a beginning has been made outside will be forwarded to tho dentists ill the camp.

Additional accommodation for denlists is being provided at Trentham and Foathcrston, and instead of one dentist at oacli camp as now there will be in each placo three fully qualified officers and one dental mechanic with the rank of sergeant. The Minister of Defence stated yesterday that when, the scheme was in full operation there 'would be a New Zealand Army Dental Service. This had already been approved. Under the scheme men who camo into town from the country to enlist,'and who were found to need dental treatment would be treated. If they wanted work in the meantime, the Public Works Department and tho Labour Department would d« their best to find work for thc-m.