Helping children with toothache in lockdown
Dental therapist Jordan Wearne worries there are children whose memories of the Covid-19 lockdown will include toothache.
‘‘To think that there are children out there in the middle of this pandemic, and they are in pain and not knowing who to ring makes me feel sick.
‘‘We really want people to know we are there to help.’’
When the country went into level 4 lockdown on March 25, dental appointments for children were cancelled, but emergency care for children, from babies to 18, has remained available.
‘‘When you have an abscessed tooth you can’t sleep because when you lie down the tooth starts throbbing so the child can’t sleep. Then the parents have a terrible sleep, and the whole bubble has a terrible sleep. It’s a nightmare,’’ she said.
Wearne, from New Plymouth, is part of the dental therapy team at the Taranaki District Health Board who are working under New Zealand Dental Association guidelines, at Taranaki Base and Ha¯ wera Hospitals.
‘‘We are relieving any pain. That’s all we can do at the moment,’’ she said.
‘‘We are able to do extractions, temporary fillings and prescribe antibiotics.’’
Any procedure or equipment that involves puffing air or spraying water can’t be carried out, to avoid spreading droplet-borne infection.
‘‘We can’t do examinations, cleans or fillings, we are doing minimally invasive things.’’
They have teeth by phone.
‘‘When someone rings about a lump or been assessing patients’ swelling in their child’s mouth, or a visible hole in a tooth, we ask parents to take a photo and send it off to us.’’
If the young patient needs to be seen, a therapist wearing full personal protection equipment (PPE) meets them in the carpark before taking them into the clinic.
‘‘I tell them there’s a friendly person under the mask and face shield,’’ she said.
‘‘I feel a bit sad because a kid with a sore tooth needs to see a smiley face, and when everyone is in full PPE it looks very different.’’
Since the lockdown started, 120 children had been triaged over the phone and
55 have been treated. Nine had teeth extracted, 46 received temporary fillings and 14 received prescriptions.
The procedures for working under level
2 were still being planned, but treatment for emergencies is available at all levels.
* The phone number to contact the dental team is 0800 825 583.