Sir, – My two daughters attended their routine dental check-up at their local HSE health clinic three weeks ago without any problems highlighted and I naturally assumed all was fine. However, we have just returned from their annual check-up here in Belgium (as we spend our summers here) and were appalled (and quite frankly embarrassed) to learn they require a half dozen fillings on their permanent teeth! My Belgian dentist was equally appalled on learning that HSE policy was not to fill cavities if there is no pain. One does not need to be a specialist paediatric dentist to know a decayed tooth will soon infect a neighbouring one, and go on to infect another, and so on.
If the HSE wants to run its dental service on a shoestring budget (even as I question the utility of such a service if it is not treating children’s teeth properly) dentists have a duty of care to at least advise parents or guardians that treatment elsewhere should be sought where problems exist. I would strongly recommend to parents to get their kids’ teeth checked privately or to go abroad, as I paid the same dental fees as a Belgian citizen (€7 per filling) under the E111 health scheme which entitles all EU citizens to avail of similar medical services in that country and which is not strictly limited to medical emergencies. – Yours, etc,
STEPHEN McGARRY,
Knocklyon, Dublin 16.