The state of children's oral health in the MidCentral district is "tantamount to child abuse", says the region's dental chief. At the opening of a new oral health clinic in Levin, the DHB's clinical director for dental services, Phil Marshall, said there needed to be a "paradigm shift" in the way parents looked after their children's teeth.
This came after 2010 statistics, released by the DHB this week, showed Maori year eight children in the region had on average 1.96 teeth that were decayed, missing or filled. That figure rose to 2.19 teeth for Pacific year eight children and stood at 1.65 teeth for all other children. The figures rose even higher for children aged five, with Pacific children registering an average of 4.36 decayed or missing teeth, and 3.17 for Maori.
This was compared with other children who only had 1.25 teeth in decay. Dr Marshall said the overall figure of 58 per cent of children in the region who were free of decay seemed like a reasonable statistic. "On the face of it, it is okay, but it's distorted. In the Horowhenua it's particularly bad – there are only about a third of them are decay free, and basically that's not good enough – it's child neglect."
Dr Marshall said the change in care had to come from the parents. "It's no good a dentist fixing the decay once a year when they come for their visit. The care has to happen on a daily basis and the good habits need to start young."
He said people needed to look at oral health care as part of their general health and realise other health problems such as abscesses and glue-ear could stem from poor dental hygiene. Only about 50 per cent of people in the MidCentral region were in areas where fluoride was added to water.
Dr Marshall, who is also president of the New Zealand School and Community Oral Health Service Society, said the MidCentral DHB region was "about middle of the road" compared with the rest of the country, but as a nation we were "drastically behind" other comparable countries such as Australia and Scotland.
While there were no figures to show the dental health of adolescents in the region, 87.7 per cent of enrolled teenagers had been treated on the adolescent oral health programme.
A new fixed dental clinic opened at the Horowhenua Health Centre yesterday, and Dr Marshall said he hoped it would work alongside dental clinics in schools to promote the importance of oral hygiene.
The clinic will complement the mobile dental service which goes to schools, by providing a free clinic for children between five months and 18 years old.
It will also double as a shared facility for Palmerston North Hospital Dental Services to provide dental care requiring general anaesthetic sessions one day every fortnight for Horowhenua-based patients.
A large group of these patients will be the former residents of the Kimberley Centre now residing in Horowhenua and Otaki.
Horowhenua is the first area in the MidCentral region to get a new fixed clinic as part of a new child and adolescent oral health project that is being rolled out in the region and nationally.
Dannevirke, Feilding and Palmerston North will also get fixed dental clinics in the medium-term future, and two school-based fixed clinics are also planned for Ross Intermediate, and Intermediate Normal schools in Palmerston North.
By mid-2013 Horowhenua and Otaki children and adolescents will also be serviced by either single chair or double chair mobile dental clinics based at any of the 21 school based sites.