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    NNSL Photo/Graphic

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    Children's dental surgery backlog

    Paul Bickford
    Northern News Services
    Published Monday, July 14, 2008

    HAY RIVER - A new funding arrangement soon to be signed by the GNWT and Ottawa will bring children's dental surgery back to Hay River.

    In January, the surgeries were halted because of funding concerns by the Hay River Health and Social Services Authority.

    NNSL Photo/Graphic

    Lesli Ward, office manager of the Hay River Dental Clinic, holds backlogged files of children awaiting dental surgery. - Paul Bickford/NNSL photo

    Since then, a backlog of more than 135 children awaiting surgery has developed.

    "It's not finalized yet," Dana Heide, the assistant deputy minister of health and social services, said of an arrangement with Ottawa. "We are really optimistic something will be worked out."

    In fact, Heide expects a deal to be reached sometime this week.

    The GNWT sought support from the federal government to pay for facility costs at the Hay River hospital, where the surgeries take place, because Ottawa is responsible for dental care for aboriginal children, who make up the majority of the patients.

    Heide said Health and Social Services Minister Sandy Lee has also committed to resuming the surgeries in Hay River, even without an agreement with Ottawa.

    "I'm happy that it's back on track," said Lesli Ward, the office manager at the Hay River Dental Clinic.

    The clinic finds an anesthesiologist and books surgeries, which are performed by the clinic's owner Dr. Jim Tennant at H.H. Williams Memorial Hospital.

    Ward has been advised by the health authority and the Department of Health and Social Services to start booking surgeries for September.

    The funding issue is really an issue between Ottawa and the GNWT, she said. "We just sort of got caught in between."

    Ward said there was no funding to pay for the anesthesiologist and the facilities.

    "The problem is it's never been funded adequately," said Paul Rosebush, CEO of the health authority.

    "The authority has been absorbing the cost within its global budget historically, at a deficit," Rosebush added, saying dental service has never been a health-insured benefit.

    It was costing the health authority about $1,000 per child per visit.

    Most of the cost for dental surgery for first nations and Inuit children is covered by the federal Non-Insured Health Benefits Program, which pays for the extractions, fillings and actual dental service.

    Rosebush said the surgeries were not stopped in January as a way of forcing the funding issue.

    Instead, he said the health authority advised the government it was no longer able to provide the operating room.

    Tennant has been performing the surgeries since the mid-1970s.

    "I think it's basically political games and unfortunately the children are hostage to it," Tennant said of the funding issue, adding it could have been dealt with a lot more quickly.

    Young patients - between three and 12 years of age - come for dental surgeries from all over the NWT, except the Inuvik area.

    Each year, 10 weeks of surgeries, involving about 300 children, are scheduled from September to June.

    "It's a huge service," Ward said.

    "It's a needed service, unfortunately."

    Heide said the new funding arrangement will also cover such surgeries in Inuvik, where there is a comparable backlog.

    Ward said dental surgery for children is very important.

    "Health wise, they're very, very sick children," she said. "When you push on their gums, puss comes out."

    A surgery often involves extracting six to eight teeth and working on the remainder.

    Much of the dental problems originate with parents putting babies to bed with a milk bottle and milk pools in the children's mouths, causing damage to the teeth.

    Instead of milk, Ward said bottles should contain water.

    Sometimes, parents also put pop into bottles instead of milk, especially in communities where milk is very expensive.

    Ward said the parents are trying to do the best they can. "We don't have a manual to raise our kids."

    She said education is the long-term solution to dental problems in children.