Calls for better dental care for disabled people in Canada
Oral healthcare is not accessible to people with disabilities and many people are being forced to wait for over a year for dental treatment, it has been revealed.
Alison Sigal, founder of the non-profit organisation Oral Health, Total Health, said that it is extremely important that disabled people get the care and treatment they need. There are around 4.4 million people with disabilities in Canada and charities, patient groups and dentists are worried that some people are going without the care they need.
Many disabilities prevent people from being able to clean their teeth properly and as a result, patients are prone to oral health problems, such as gum disease and tooth decay. Sandy Lawlor, from the Canadian Dental Hygienists Association, said that oral health problems were very common amongst disabled people and more needed to be done to ensure that disabled dental patients have access to regular dental appointments.
Sigal set up the non-profit organisation OHTH in 2008 to try and raise awareness of the importance of good oral healthcare for disabled people. The aim of the charity is to educate members of the public about the problems faced by many disabled people and encourage more dentists to treat patients with special needs. Sigal is keen to promote training for student dentists, which will hopefully lead to shorter waiting lists in the future.
Sigal set up the OHTH after spending the summer doing a research project at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto; during her time at the hospital, she noticed the prevalence of oral health problems amongst patients with special needs and found that many deceased patients had died from heart attacks, which could have been caused by bacteria in the mouth.
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