Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, AUGUST 22, 1941. SCHOOL DENTAL CLINICS.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 22 August 1941, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, AUGUST 22, 1941. SCHOOL DENTAL CLINICS.

TN view of the difficulty that has been experienced in inducing some parents to pay the modest foes needed Io secure the treatment of their children at the school dental clinics, most people will approve the fiction taken by the Government in making the clinics virtually free. The ruling aim must be to ensure that as many children as possible get denial treatment. Indeed, it cannot be regarded as a. satisfactory or tolerable slate of affairs that any New Zealand children should be denied the benefits of this treatment.

Facts of serious import were dealt with by the secretary of the Masterton Dental Clinic, Mr J. G. McFarlane, in a statement, published yesterday, in the course of which he observed that some parents are prejudiced against the clinic service and that in consequence many children throughout the schools “show a degree of decay and neglect in the care of their teeth which, to say the least, amounts to a most unsatisfactory state of affairs.” This statement, which it may be supposed Mr McFarlane is in a position to substantiate, goes far to justify his suggestion that the Government should take one further step and make dental treatment part of the child’s education and compulsory.

Taking account- of the vital importance of dental health in itself, and as it bears on general health and wellbeing, there should be no question of allowing the teeth of any New Zealand child to be neglected. Where clinics are available, no children should he denied the benefits of clinic treatment unless they are under the care ol private practitioners, ’the state of the child’s mouth, and not. the idiosyncrasies or prejudices of parents ought to be the determining factor.

Positive action is the more imperatively demanded in this matter since sound teeth arc very much rarer than they ought to be in this country. The rather depressing fact has been reported by the Director of Dental Hygiene that out of every hundred men examined for military service, only eight had sound teeth. Of every hundred men examined, GO had had their teeth extracted and 32 needed treatment. In this generally favoured land, such a stale of affairs can only be regarded as deplorable.

It is clearly necessary that denial treatment, commencing,' at. an early age, should be extended as widely as possible, and here the school dental clinics, turned as fully as possible to account, are capable of rendering invaluable service. There is need also, however, of extended research into the causes of dental disease in New Zealand. Instances are by no means rare in which children whose teeth have been well looked after from their earliest years are attacked by more or less serious dental disease. Able and experienced practitioners have at times admitted their inability to account for the onset of dental decay in otherwise healthy individuals whose teeth have never lacked skilled attention. Theories that have been advanced on tlie subject fail generally to carry conviction. At the somewhat alarming' stage that has been reached there is an obvious need for scientific research into the causes of dental disease in this country, as well as for the widest possible extension of treatment wherever it is needed.