Attitude of Nigerians towards to oral care
Until a lot of people come down with a very serious tooth ache or swelling that is almost killing them, they do not go to dentists to seek care. Of course, we have lost patients who died from facial swelling, abscesses which were not properly taken care of in time, maybe because of poverty they could not seek treatment on time, warranting the condition to spread and then compromising their air ways, leading to death. We still record cases like that.
How common is such a case?
Well it is common in rural areas. It could be because people are not enlightened or they don’t have money to seek treatment. Like I said information too is very vital. People have to be informed.
The approach, “prevention is better than cure” is very important. To be able to teach a lot of people some of these things that are eventually causing problem, the better it is for all of us.
Challenges of dentists managing oral care
Economic situation is not helping matters at all. The ratio of dentists on ground now to population is really far from the ideal. A number of dentists are not even employed.
You see dentists graduating from dental school and after doing horsemanship, as well as the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), they would be looking for job.
They don’t even have money to establish private dental clinics. Presently, the government is saying it doesn’t have fund to employ and pay. So, where do we go from here?
Even we cannot make maximum use of the few dentists that are on ground in spite of the fact that they are not enough. When you are talking about population of about 5,000 dentists to care for over 170 million Nigerians, you can imagine the gap. The earlier we begin to address this problem, the better it is for us.
That is why we are doing seminars to teach our people. The objective of these trainings is for dentists to be able to survive in the harsh economic realities of Nigeria.
There are some factors we have to put into focus. We are still trying to see if we can approach government to get loans for people who have graduated to set up dental practices such that it won’t be on a very high interest rate. That way will be able to reach the populace and at the same time the cost of treatment will go down.
We have to talk about public private partnership (PPP) in other to still keep the profession running and ensure that we are able to reach far more Nigerians as we are reaching right now and at the same time still practice the profession and make profit out of it because in spite of that huge gap we still have a lot of dentists who are on the streets looking for jobs either in private clinic or in government settings.
The space for employment is not even there. Even the few ones we have are not appropriately utilised. So, that is the harsh economic reality of our country.
Comment on a new study on dentine hyper sensitivity
Well, what we found out from the study is that in what many Nigerians consume, there are things that promote the wearing away of the protective layers on the teeth called the enamel.
By the time the enamel is worn away it exposes the sensitive part of the teeth called the dentine. Dentine is the inner layer of the tooth that has nerve endings going through what we call dentine tube.
When that is exposed and then you take some food into your mouth, maybe hot drink or cold drink or sugary drink or whatever, the person feels intense pain in his mouth.
Even if it is pain that lasted a short time, it can be discomforting and so that’s why we have come with the study to encourage our people, to tell them what to do, especially to give them information on the diet to avoid to prevent such and when the case of the wear arises what can be instituted to alleviate the associated discomfort.
That’s the highlight of that study called dentine hyper sensitivity.
Diet causing hypersensitivity
A lot of us take very sugary diet such as refined sugar including soft drinks and snacks. Naturally, there are bacteria in our mouth. That is the way it has been designed by nature but the bacteria have their roles to play.
They are harmless if the environment is as natural as expected to be. A lot of us take a lot of all these refined foods that tend to cause the wearing away of the protective layer which we call enamel of the tooth structure, exposing dentine leading to direct contact of some harsh-like cold or hot drinks.
Sugary drinks and soft drinks make contact with the sensitive part of the tooth, that is the dentine and the nerve inside it. That is what results to hypersensitivity. Apart from that we also have what we call tooth well lesions.
The way some of us brush our teeth, at times is improper. Some people use hard brush and because that is not what we are expected to use, it wears away the teeth.
The hard tooth brush is also very harsh on the enamel’s protective layer of the tooth. It causes the wearing away of the protective layer exposing that dentine. Some of us grind our teeth.
By the time some do that, they are removing the protective layer of the teeth and exposing the dentine to oral environment directly such that when they take some of these food, they have a direct contact with the dentine and invariably the nerve within the dentine, resulting in dentine hypersensitivity. So, when we go about giving oral health talks we tell people the effects of some of these things.
We tell them the things they should avoid, the things they should do so that we educate people, but it does not matter how we cry and shout people, some people still do the wrong things. We must now teach people how to properly handle these conditions when they arise.
Affordability of dental care services
Well, on the average I must confess to you that dental services don’t come cheap. The materials we use like the hardware are very expensive. These things are not manufactured in Nigeria.
We import them with hard currency. It is not like medical practices where you get a space, put a couch, examine the patient, then institute treatment and prescribe drugs.
Dental practice is a whole lot different because of the processes involved. There is no material we use that is manufactured in Nigeria.
By: APPOLONIA ADEYEMI
The Newtelegraph News
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