CHILDREN’S TEETH

New Zealand Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 10603, 31 May 1920, Page 4

CHILDREN’S TEETH

The announcement by the Hon. C. j. Parr (Minister for Education) that his department is inaugurating forthwith a dental department for the treatment of tho teeth of the school children throughout the Dominion will bo warmly welcomed by all who have at'heart tho health, the efficiency, and tho comfort of the future citizens of this country. Colonel Hunter, a man of wide experience, both as a dentist and a« an organiser, has been appointed chief dental officer to tho department, and the Minister anticipates that about a dozen dentists will at onco he engaged. The appointments may, indeed, be made this week. Mr Parr, who is very keenly interested in this phase of the Education Department’s work, is consulting Colonel Hunter with regard to tho matter, and the chief dental officer is to set about organising tho now department without delay. Tho Minister is particularly anxious that the childien in the backblocks, who have hitherto laboured under very venous handicaps in this respect, shall receive the urgcntiy-uccdcd dental treatment as soon as over tho necessary arrangements can ho completed. Previously, medical inspection of tho children’s teeth and a report to tho parents as to the treatment required has been all that the Education Department has done in regard to this important matter, though the present Minister’s predecessor, the Hon. J. A. Hanan, had long urged the vital necessity of State dental, treatment for school children. The great need for the further step forward that is now being taken is shown by the fact that in some schools medical inspection had revealed tho disquieting fact that not one child in thirty could show a sound sot of teeth ; and tho recent experience of the Minister himself in regard to this matter cannot but have the effect of causing him to speed up as far as practicable the commencement of the work of the new department. He is clearly seized of the groat value of the services that the department, if efficiently organised on tho ment up-to-date lines, will .be in a position to render to the children of to-day and of all the tomorrows, and every well-wisher of this Britain of the South must applaud his declaration that “tho day has gono by when tho State could afford to treat the health and physical wellbeing of its young people as a negligible quantity.”