DENTAL HEALTH WEEK OBSERVED

October 22, 2007

This week is being celebrated as Dental Health Week. Doctor Carl Meggs, President of the Belize Dental Society and Senior Dental Surgeon in the Ministry of Health tells us more. 

Doctor Carl Meggs, President of the Belize Dental Society and Senior Dental Surgeon in the Ministry of Health:

“Dental Health Week opened yesterday and what we’re doing is working in conjunction with Colgate, Palmolive Company and well be doing some activities in the schools by delivering toothbrush and toothpaste and educational materials to the various schools throughout the country. Each district will have their own activity and we will be going into the school to do the usual preventative dental drills, that is, to teach the children the proper way to brush and floss and give them as much educational materials as we can.” 

Meggs said that this year the Dental Health Society will not only focus on prevention but will try and bridge the gap between dentistry and general health. 

Doctor Carl Meggs, President of the Belize Dental Society and Senior Dental Surgeon in the Ministry of Health:

“This year also, what we’re doing is working through the Belize Dental Society and we have taken a new outlook and approach to dentistry. For the last eighteen years we have been stressing prevention, prevention but what we are doing now through the dental society is having a Dental Congress this coming Friday, where all dental personnel are invited. And this is in conjunction with the Belize Medical and Dental Association Congress and Medical Congress that we have. What we are trying to bridge is bridging dentistry with general health. It’s so easy for us to look at dentistry as a profession by itself because as recently as last week in New York, Manhattan, dental screenings were done. Dental screenings is not only for oral cavities, dental screenings is directly related with many diseases like heart disease, diabetes, and hypertension. Those are all things that can be identified from doing a complete dental examination. That might be something new for Belizeans to hear but the facts are out there and this is so. What we are doing now with the congress is trying to work with the medical community like doctors, where we can start to bridge this relationship and work on this relationship and bring it to the forefront in medicine, particularly in Belize. When people this about going to the dentist, it’s not only about going to the dentist because I have a toothache, you go to the dentist and there’s a general set of screening relations that are in place that it visits a broader spectrum.”  

The Dental congress will be held at the Radisson Fort George Hotel and will start at 8 in the morning on Friday.  Both foreign and local doctors will be at the congress to give lectures on dentistry locally and internationally. We asked Meggs about the level of awareness of dental health in Belize. 

Doctor Carl Meggs, President of the Belize Dental Society and Senior Dental Surgeon in the Ministry of Health:

“Dentistry on a whole has never been a priority in Belize and I can say that from the point of authority because I have spent the last eight years of my life devoted to trying to get the awareness of the importance of dental health to people. When we see a patient, 90% of the time, a person who comes to the dentist comes because they’re in pain and after that is taken care of, you don’t see them again until the second time something is wrong. At one particular time I would’ve blamed the fact that we, the dental community has not tried to educate but I can vow for that. We have tried to educate the Belizean population. Every time around Dental Health Week, we get an influx of interest into your clinic both privately and publicly and 3-4 weeks time that interest is gone again. Now with the new area that dentistry is covered, and the new studies that have proven directly related to general health, I believe it won’t be an affect that is going to happen over night, but what our plans are at the dental society, we are going to be bringing in lecturers and in fact we already had lecturers lined up that’s going to be coming in.” 

Meggs spoke of a dental disease that we here in Belize must be aware of.  

Doctor Carl Meggs, President of the Belize Dental Society and Senior Dental Surgeon in the Ministry of Health:

“A disease called methmouth, if you were to ask maybe 75% of the medical community right now in Belize, what is methmouth and they wouldn’t have the slightest idea. But methmouth is the new face,it’s the new crack cocaine that surrounds us right now. We have it in Guatemala, Mexico and this is one of the areas that we are trying to do to get to that particular problem before it becomes an epidemic in Belize. And again, who was the first person to identify that? It should be the dentist because this is where it manifests itself most obviously, in the mouth. Methmouth is methamphetamine. As we know, meth is the new crack and it is very easily made with the cough medicine and methamphetamine can easily be made in your kitchen by just going to the stores and buying the ingredients and going on the internet and  get the formula of how to do it. So it’s not a matter of if it’s coming to Belize, it’s a matter of when it comes to Belize. It is something that can easily be mixed. With methamphetamines it’s something that really destroys the mouth.” 

Dental Health Week is being celebrated under the theme: “Stop Extraction Go Prevention”.

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