Charity offer of treatment withdrawn

Dunedin beneficiary Tamara Smith shows her rotten and broken teeth. Photo: Gerard O'Brien
Dunedin beneficiary Tamara Smith shows her rotten and broken teeth. Photo: Gerard O'Brien
Two Otago Daily Times readers offered free dental care by an Auckland charity have had their hopes that long-standing issues with their teeth were about to be solved dashed.

Ashburton solo father Michael Wilson and Dunedin beneficiary Tamara Smith featured in a May feature in the The Weekend Mix on the high cost of dental care.

Auckland charitable trust Smileplan subsequently offered to fly Mr Wilson and Ms Smith to Auckland for free treatment.

However, group practice manager Gavin Ray emailed both potential patients last week to tell them surgery in Auckland was not a viable option for their conditions.

Mr Wilson has gum disease and cannot chew many foods.

Mr Ray wrote that having seen photos of Mr Wilson's mouth, he realised that his infected gums meant treatment would require multiple visits to the dentist over a period of time.

''If we were to rush treatment, or condense it down so as to reduce the amount of visits up to Auckland, it may have detrimental effects on the health of your gums, which is just as important as the health of your actual teeth.''

It was a similar story for Ms Smith, who has rotten teeth which cut the inside of her mouth.

She also sent photos to Smileplan, which also showed gum infection.

''Additionally, it is likely that some of your fillings are very deep and would require fillings as a first attempt, or root canals as [a] second step should the fillings not hold,'' Mr Ray said.

''This would again mean multiple visits to the dentist as these treatments cannot be completed in one appointment and require a certain rest period in order for the treatment to be successful.''

Both were told to find a local dentist who would accept payment by installments, and apply to Work and Income for money to pay for the work.

Mr Wilson said he was disappointed, but philosophical.

''Dreams are free I guess - I don't take anything like that for granted until it happens,'' he said.

Ms Smith said she was upset she would now not be receiving free treatment.

''They said there was pretty much nothing they could do ... I was quite excited that I might be able to go out and look normal, but no.''

Ms Smith said her own dentist had suggested she only needed treatment to her top teeth, and questioned Smilecare's gum disease diagnosis from seeing two photographs.

Mr Ray said Smilecare should have obtained a fuller picture of Mr Wilson and Ms Smith's conditions before saying it would fix their problems.

''One lesson we feel we could learn from this is to do a full clinical assessment of the patients prior to offering this treatment,'' he said.

''If we had done that then we would definitely not have offered to do this treatment for them, unless they were in Auckland.''

Smilecare did not own dental practices in Dunedin but many surgeons, or the dental school, could offer affordable dental care, he said.

Smilecare would stay in touch with Mr Wilson and Ms Smith to help them, if possible, he said.

mike.houlahan@odt.co.nz

 

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