Mike W. Bryant
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (July 29/02) - Three-thousand tooth brushes are on their way to children all across the territory this week in the hope of combating a growing problem with tooth decay.

The toothbrushes were donated to the Canadian Dental Association by dental hygiene company Oral-B Laboratories.

The company gave the CDA 50,000 toothbrushes to give away throughout the country, but some provinces didn't want them.

NWT Dental Association executive director Don Portz said they were only too happy to take as many as they could.

"They asked if I could use more," said Portz. "And I said: 'Yes, because the dental health of children in the NWT is far worse than the rest of the country.'

"What we decided to do when we had these was to get them out to the smaller communities that don't have dental clinics, or dental services."

Isolation is a major problem, said Portz. Visits from dentists can be far and few in between for many Northern communities, which makes it hard to get the message across to both parents and their children to take better care of their teeth.

The prevalence of junk food, and a decreased emphasis on traditional foods is also a problem.

"Lets face it," said Portz. "Their health care is not the best in some of these smaller communities. The change in diet for a lot of aboriginal people in the North contributed greatly to poor dental health.

"We're hoping if we could get the toothbrushes in the hands of some small children, then in some small way we can improve their dental health."

Fort Liard community health representative Bernice Hardisty said she thought the toothbrush mail-out was a great idea.

She is implementing a toothbrushing program at Acho Dene school starting in the fall.

"When the younger ones see the older ones brush, they'll pick it up," said Hardisty.