X1000306-1959-60_Part01 — Page 47

DENTAL SERVICE

353. The Senior Dental Specialist, assisted by one Dental Specialist and 27 Dental Officers, maintains a general dental service for the Civil Service and a School Dental Service. In addition emergency treatment is given in Government hospitals. in Her Majesty's Prisons and at certain Government Outpatient clinics.

354. The general dental service offers treatment to all monthly paid Government officers and their families, with whom Government has a contractual obligation to provide such facilities. Emergency services for the general public, mainly extractions for the relief of pain, are beld twice weekly at the Sai Ying Pun Hospital on Hong Kong Island and the Li Kee Memorial Dispensary in Kowloon, fortnightly at Tai Po and Yuen Long, and monthly at Cheung Chau and Tai O.

355. The six School Dental Clinics are maintained for participants in the School Health Service and, although a larger number of fillings was possible during the year, extractions continued to be necessary in many cases--an indication of the extent of the problem of dental caries in Hong Kong. In this connexion a Colony-wide dental survey was carried out during March 1960, prior to the start of fluoridation of the domestic water supplies in Hong Kong. A preliminary assessment of the results of the survey, in which more than 8,000 school children aged between 6 and II were examined, indicates that less than one per cent within this age group are free from some degree of dental caries.

356. During the year two small additional Dental Clinics were opened, one static clinic for the general service at Farm Road. Kowloon and one Mobile Dental Unit. The latter was designed and built locally to provide full dental services for Government personnel in the New Territories, who are living considerable distances away from static clinic facilities, it also visits schools in the New Territories to under- take dental examinations and treatment for participants in the School Health Service. The Mobile Unit also provides a limited service for prisoners and certain other patients in the rural areas.

357. The work done during the year is detailed in the following table:

TABLE 30

Government Servants

Inspections prior to treatmen

1958

1959

7,164

7,544

Attended for the first time

2,390

2,850

Total visits by Government servantis

23,256

27.026

Total visits by dependants

24,162

27,615

Completed treatment and dentally fit

5,653

6,945

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་ ་ ་

358. The delays in starting routine inspections and treatment for those on waiting lists who are not suffering from emergency conditions was reduced from an average of 11 weeks in 1958 to 84 weeks in 1959. There is still a considerable delay of six months or more in supplying prosthetic appliances, again excluding emergencies. However the ap- pointment for the first time of an experienced and fully qualified Dental Technologist has enabled a re-organization of this aspect of the service to be started and systematic training of technicians has begun. Plans for a course of training of Dental Technicians at the Technical College have advanced to the stage where it is probable that the first intake of students will occur in September 1960.

359.

In the School Dental Service the number of participating children again fell from 28,094 in 1958 to 26.123 in 1959; the ratio of fillings to extractions rose from 92:100 to 137:100. However the number of teeth which had to be extracted because they could not be saved is still very high. 2,576 permanent and 11,262 deciduous teeth being

extracted,

Dental Services provided by Welfare & Missionary organizations

360. Welfare organizations maintain a number of dental clinics either for their own members or for the poor in their respective districts. The Hong Kong Dental Society continues to staff four free evening clinics each week, three in Kowloon and one in Hong Kong together with a fortnightly clinic at the Ruttonjec Sanatorium. The St. John Ambulance Brigade sends a Penetration Squad, which includes dentist. cach Sunday to the more remote areas of the New Territories where frec treatment is given to those in need. A mobile dental unit built and operated by the Church World Service began operations in the New Territories during June 1959, where it provides emergency and routine dental treatment for poor people at low cost.

Control of Dental Practice

361.

Two Dental Inspectors were employed throughout the year in connexion with the supervision and control of private dental practice. Premises used or proposed to be used by private dental practitioners were inspected regularly. There were four prosecutions for alleged dental practice by unregistered persons and three individuals were convicted of this offence.

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