Child tooth decay worst in Northland

AUCKLAND: Children in the poorest regions still have worse teeth than the rest of the country — and there are warnings that more has to be done if real gains are to be made.

Nationally, 40% of 5yearolds who received dental checkups last year had some form of tooth decay, latest figures from the Ministry of Health show.

But in regions such as Northland and Tairawhiti, that figure is much higher.

Tairawhiti District Health Board covers Gisborne and the East Coast, and about half of all 5yearolds there have some form of tooth decay.

Dental service manager Arish Naresh said while all young children were enrolled with the DHB’s oral health service, that did not necessarily translate to families actually showing up for appointments.

‘‘Here in Gisborne a lot of people work in forestry or out in the field, so they leave their homes at 5am, get home at 6pm.

‘‘It doesn’t make any sense for us to pencil in an appointment at 1pm for the child.

‘‘They will not take time off, especially when they are [low] paid workers.’’

To get around that, Mr Naresh said they started running clinics in the evenings and at the weekends.

‘‘And actually our numbers of missed appointments is really low in our evening and weekend clinics, compared to our normal clinic days.’’

While the statistics on the prevalence of tooth decay are not budging, there are improvements in the number of children needing a general anaesthetic to have teeth removed.

Last year it was 138 and this year it was 83, Mr Naresh said.

The region with the worst teeth was Northland.

Almost 56% of 5yearolds there have some form of tooth decay.

Northland DHB oral health adviser Neil Croucher said while the statistics were not getting any better, they at least were not getting any worse.

‘‘The only good piece of news around that is we are seeing the severity of decay improve, but not what we call the prevalence of decay.

‘‘There are still the same number of 5yearolds with one or more decayed teeth, and obviously we’re slightly disappointed with that.’’

One thing that could make a big difference to Northland’s dire statistics would be adding fluoride to the region’s water, Dr Croucher said.

In areas where water could not be fluoridated, they offered a fluoride varnish, which helped strengthen and protect children’s teeth.

University of Otago dental public health expert

Jonathan Broadbent said improving oral health was not just about what happened in the dental chair.

He wanted more done to get basic oral hygiene messages, such as brushing twice a day with fluoride toothpaste, out.

‘‘Initiatives, like maybe even taking the GST off these products and providing some degree of subsidy, even if it’s just for children’s oral health selfcare products, so that people know that it’s a priority and they can see that it’s more accessible and more affordable to them,’’ he said.

Dental association president Bill O’Connor blamed an underresourced publicly funded oral health service for the level of decay.

‘‘Last year over 100,000 kids didn’t get their checkup.

‘‘That’s a lot of kids sitting there who are missing out on getting checks, so those cavities are not getting picked up when they’re small and easy to treat.

‘‘That’s why we ended up with last year 36,000 children having one or more teeth extracted.’’ — RNZ

❛ Last year over 100,000 kids didn’t get their checkup