Government improving Dental Health Care Services in Guyana
- Oral Health Month, November 2004
A GINA feature by Azeem Khan
Georgetown, GINA, November 5, 2004
Oral Health Month is once again being observed in Guyana and the focus, as always, is providing better dental health services to the Guyanese people.
The theme for this year is “It is all about a healthy mouth.” For this year the dental services have introduced fully the Autramatic Restorative Treatment (ART).This is a new tooth filling concept and it is said to be painless.
This has given the children and other persons who were afraid to go to the dentist much more courage and assurance of enduring less or no pain at all.
The Government is working very hard to enhance it budgetary allocation to the oral health sector.
In 2003 the Government allocated $70M in contracts for the oral health sector but because of procedural hiccups, this money was never expended.
Oral Health Month was observed for the first time in 2001.
The Ministry of Health and Colgate/ Palmolive have launched several activities in all regions of the country for this year’s Oral Health Month.
These activities serve to inform the population about Oral Health in Guyana, to empower the population through oral health and to sensitize the population to the works of the Dental Services here.
However, the most important objective is to create an awareness of oral health diseases in Guyana.
Much emphasis is placed on educating the public on measures available to save teeth, including the ART.
Citizens are urged to take responsibility for the prevention of oral diseases and to educate their children about this.
The Government wants all citizens to be involved, especially children, and that is why the programme is being taken to schools.
The Dental Health Services mission statement says, “To ensure that the population, in general, and its most vulnerable segments in particular, enjoy a functional and long-standing oral health status through accessible, equitable and sustainable preventative and conservative oral health services.”
The Ministry of Health and Dental Health Services are working on several other initiatives to further develop the oral health sector in Guyana.
One of these is the implementation of a dental programme at Ante-natal clinics. This will ensure that women’s dental health during pregnancy is protected by making it routine for them to visit the dentist after they have joined the clinics.
Over the past few years the Ministry has increased the number of dental personnel across the country with the training of 30 dental students at the Dental Centre and training of Community Dental Therapists.
There are more than 35 dental auxiliary personnel who were trained at the Cheddi Jagan Dental Centre with skills and the ability to execute ART fillings.
This new programme is to reduce the unnecessary extraction of teeth and to generally improve the oral health of Guyanese.
This is seen as the best solution for dealing with the high prevalence of untreated dental problems especially in children, and the high number of extractions at Government dental institutions.
Government has spent approximately $96M to install and upgrade facilities at the dental institutions over the past year.
Over the coming years ART will be introduced in three phases.
The first, which has already started, involves existing dental personnel and this targets a selected number of schools on the coast and in Hinterland areas.
The second phase, which has also started, provides 11 newly graduated dentists and will entail an evaluation of the projects and expansion to other schools and health centres.
Phase three will see further expansion of the programme after three years. At that time, it is expected that there will be a significant reduction in the number of tooth extractions and a significant reduction in the percentage of untreated dental caries.
It is also expected that about 38,500 teeth will be filled nationwide at the end of the three years.
Presently the Cheddi Jagan Dental Centre attends to more than 170-200 patients daily, including children.
This three year programme is funded by the Government of Guyana with assistance from the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
Several other activities are planned for this month, including television and radio programmes and school and church visits. These activities will take place in almost all the regions of Guyana.
All the regions in Guyana will be holding activities for the month, these regions will be allocated $60, 000 each to carryout these activities.
In Georgetown, staff of the Cheddi Jagan Dental Centre will be visiting health centres in Georgetown.
The official launching of Oral Health Month will be done in New Amsterdam, Berbice, on November 13, 2004.
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