Clinic Will Bring A Dental Basic

Journal editorial board

Source: http://www.journalnow.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-clinic-will-bring-a-dental-basic/article_4fe085bd-8616-553e-acf5-6efbd6d3e07b.html



It’s one of those things — maybe the best example we have — of how decisions made in youth can have a strong and lasting impact on us as adults. Good dental hygiene is a habit that has to be developed early in life. Otherwise, the effects of poor dental hygiene — cavities, lost teeth and diseased gums — are nearly irreversible.

That’s why we’re pleased to hear about the partnership between the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County School System and the Cleveland Avenue Dental Center. The clinic will offer dental services, including screenings, to all students, the Journal’s Arika Herron reported recently. The whole thing will begin this month with a pilot program at Forest Park Elementary School. If it works as predicted, the program will be expanded to other schools in the system.

“We’re trying to reach the population that doesn’t have a dentist,” Emily Smith, the clinic’s dental director, told the Journal.

Unfortunately, that’s a significant portion.

Parental involvement will be essential to the program’s success. Forest Park’s students — about 650 of them — will take slips home to get permission for the dental screenings. The results of the screenings will be shared with the parents. Those eligible through government-sponsored insurance programs Medicaid or NC Health Choice can then receive additional services, such as cleanings or sealants to help prevent cavities. Students who need more extensive dental work, like fillings for cavities, will be referred to the clinic or another dental provider.

Many of Forest Park’s students come from low-income families, Falicia Fuller, the principal of Forest Park, told the Journal. Quite a few qualify for free or reduced-price school meals and most of them will qualify for the dental program.

As Fuller pointed out to the Journal, it can be a challenge for low-income families to get their children to the dentist. They often don’t have reliable access to transportation or they work multiple jobs with little time off available.

Offering services in the school will remove that obstacle, Fuller told the Journal.

The dental program is made possible by part of a grant from the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust. It covers the cost of portable equipment, like dental chairs, to aid in the clinic setup at the school. After the screenings, public health hygienists will return to clean teeth and to apply sealants.

The situation for children of low-income workers is not ideal. For a variety of reasons, their parents sometimes come up short of resources and the children suffer for it. Programs like this can have a significant effect on the quality of life that children possess and are able to carry into the future.

The school board and the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners have approved the program.

“We want to do everything we can,” Fuller told the Journal. “When children come to school, we want their minds to be on school and what they’re learning, not worried about other things.”

We share the sentiment.
 
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