St. Mary’s students learn to like dentist’s chair

For many of us, just the sound of a dental drill is enough to cause excruciating pain. All the more reason why it’s so important to take care of your teeth. That’s the message of one group of health care professionals that News Five’s Jacqueline Woods caught up with at St. Mary’s Primary.

Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
If these boys and girls felt nervous sitting in the dentist?s chair you would never know it looking at them. … that?s because they?re old hands at it. The Smile Project, a joint initiative by the Anglican Diocese and a team of medical specialists from the United States, is twelve years old and primarily targets students from Anglican primary schools. The children enrol in the programme from when they are in infant one and continue to receive care through standard six.

Carolyn Arnold, Local Coordinator, The Smile Project
?This is a programme that the students need to keep coming. So once in infant one, they start there where they get them used to coming to a dentist. They come in and they check their teeth and they clean it. As they get older, they need to restore, they might need sealings so that these children can have their teeth for life. Because this is the purpose of this programme, so that children can have their teeth for life.?

Local coordinator Carolyn Arnold says the programme has been a success because each year there are fewer cavity cases. Of course not all the children remain committed, but overall the visiting medical team has been encouraged. It?s their fourth visit to Belize and the group includes three dentists and three hygienists.

Bruce Walker, Team Leader
?We do protease and fluorides; that?s cleaning and fluorides for almost all the children. And then those that have decay we try to get to the fillings that we are able to do, the restorations. So that?s the second thing we try to do. We do some limited extractions, only on those teeth that are abscessed or if a child says that they are in pain.?

Team leader Bruce Walker has been with Smile Project for six years. Walker says the young patients are not the only ones who benefit.

Bruce Walker
?I think it?s a lot of putting our talents and the gifts that we have been given to some good use and sharing some of the things that we have. I just think it makes your heart feel good to be able to reach out and share.?

The children?s families who may not be able to afford the extensive dental care appreciate the free service.

Bruce Walker
?I think it?s very successful. I think what we try to do as part of our programme is when we see a permanent tooth, a first molar, when we get to the kids young enough when those teeth first appear in their mouth at about six years old, if we can get a sealing on these teeth and get them through their most cavity prone years of six to ten years old, maybe twelve years old?if we can keep decay from setting up in those teeth during those years they have a good chance that they can keep those teeth for life.?

The programme not only includes the medical checkups, but dental care kits are also given to students to encourage them to practise good hygiene. Jacqueline Woods.

The Smile Project has also assisted students at Hattieville Government School and Stella Maris, as well as other children through B.C.V.I.