Dawn Ostrem
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Apr 17/00) - Dental therapists are a unique part of Northern culture when it comes to health matters.

Cathleen Lesparence has been providing basic dental services to the communities of Wha Ti, Rae Lakes and Snare Lake for two and a half years. Dental therapists like Lesparence mainly deal with school-aged children and provides nearly the same kind of care a certified dentist would in the south.

"We work independently to provide basic dental services to school-aged children and emergency services to adults," she said. "We specifically do it in native, Northern communities."

Of the dental therapists in Canada, only a few work under a dentist in the south. Most, like Lesparence, travel to communities in the North by airplane, equipment in tow, to set up clinics and visit schools to talk about healthy dental practices.

Since April is dental health month, school visitations are currently a big part of the job.

"The idea is to promote overall improvement of health in the communities," Lesparence said. "We provide more prevention measures than a dentist would."

Lesparence spends three to four months in each of the three, doing everything from fillings and uncomplicated extractions to x-rays and cleanings, as well as educating her young clients.

"We don't do braces or complicated extractions," she said. "Anything we can't do we can have referred to a dentist so we complement each other."

The program most dental therapists work under in the North is government-funded and very cost-effective, according to Lesparence. They are payed a salary versus billing for services, so no matter what work is done on patients, the amount of money spent is nearly the same aside from the cost of supplies. The starting wage for most therapists is around $50,000 a year.

Lesparence said there were 30 people who started the two-year dental therapy program with her in Prince Albert, Sask. in 1992, but only nine successfully completed the course.

"It's quite deceiving," she said about the program's length. "But it's a very intense and challenging program. You have to meet very high clinical and academic standards."

Lesparence said her background in nursing helped her maintain the stamina to complete the course.

"It's really a unique program because we are the only care-givers in a community if a problem arises.

"It's not so much because they can't get dentists up here," she said. "We do a lot of education and provide a different service."

And the benefits of living in the communities are plentiful, although someone who takes on the position must be able to cope with the isolation factor, says Lesparence.

On a nice, mild evening in Snare Lake, she and the community recreation director decided to get some of the children together for a social gathering. Lesparence brought her guitar and began singing to the kids when a black bear ran through the community and created utter chaos.

"The parents ran in yelling and eventually the bear mosied on," she laughed. "But it was kind of funny. I thought never again would my song ever be interrupted by a bear."