Heather Latter
The Northwestern Health Unit is concerned about the eligibility criteria for a new integrated provincial dental program.
The government’s proposed “Healthy Smiles Ontario 2” (HSO 2) will replace two current programs and greatly reduce the number of those eligible for the service.
“They are saying effective August, 2015, the province will be closing two successful dental programs, which are the Preventive Services protocol and the Children in Need of Treatment [CINOT] program,” noted Dawn Sauve, dental health manger for the health unit.
“What we would like to see happen is for them to keep the dental program the way it is,” she remarked, adding they were pleased to hear Premier Kathleen Wynne indicated on Dec. 8 that her government may look at changing the preventive part of it.
“Our big concern is the Children in Need of Treatment program,” Sauve stressed.
“It has been very successful throughout the province and throughout Northwestern Ontario.”
She noted 32,000 children in Ontario that have used the program, including 329 in our catchment area.
“And what we’re finding is they are not eligible for this new program,” Sauve said.
In a letter to Health and Long-Term Care minister Dr. Eric Hoskins, health unit board chair Julie Roy indicated that in 2013, more than 4,000 children of the working poor received dental preventive or treatment services under provincial dental programs in our region.
“Only 80 children would be eligible for the new program because the financial criteria is so low that there aren’t many who are eligible,” said Sauve, noting it’s only based on very strict financial needs, instead of both the dental health need and financial.
“This means that 49 of every 50 children [3,920 out of 4,000] who were previously seen will now be excluded from the proposed HSO 2 program,” Roy wrote.
She also asked that Hoskins work with the health unit to continue to provide service to vulnerable children in Northern Ontario.
At its Nov. 21 meeting, the health unit board approved a resolution to ensure continued oral health access for 4,000 local Children in Need of Preventive Services or with urgent dental needs.
It wants the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care to maintain the current eligibility criteria, as well as continue to support current levels of funding provided through general program and “Healthy Smiles Ontario” budgets at the local level.
In addition, it resolved the eligibility criteria for the proposed preventive and emergency programs consider dental needs and financial hardship in order to maintain and ensure equitable access to oral health preventive and treatment services for all children.
“We would really like to see the CINOT program continue and the preventive services,” Sauve stressed.
“I’m hoping so because otherwise there will be a lot of children who will fall through the cracks that will not get the service that they need,” she warned.
“We’ll see the dental decay rates go up and more children suffering with dental problems, and a lot of children we can’t help.
“Dental disease is the number-one chronic disease in children and it’s almost 100 percent preventable,” Sauve added.
“We have really good programs here that we don’t want to see lost.”
Sauve also said prevention is much cheaper than treatment.
“It’s much cheaper to put a $20 sealant on a tooth versus a $100 filling or $1,000 root canal,” she remarked.
And with no program to help a child with a toothache, Sauve anticipates a rise in emergency room visits.
“Then you see emergency room visits increase and they can’t pull a tooth out or do a filling in an emergency room, so they give them antibiotics and pain-killers,” she said.
“One of the worst pain is a tooth ache,” Sauve said. “It affects their sleep, eating, learning at school, all of that.
“We don’t want to see the children in our area suffer over the loss of those two programs,” she reiterated.
“I’ve been doing dental public health for over 26 years and I’ve seen it grow and become such a good program, it would be like 10 steps backwards.
“It would be quite a loss for the whole province and our area,” Sauve stressed.
