Users of a cost-saving dental program that officials say enhances the quality of life for students in seven elementary schools in the region will have to wait a little longer to learn the initiative’s fate.
In March Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health (WDGPH) staff said they would learn in August if the fluoride varnish initiative was one of the funded programs under the new amalgamated dental program being designed by the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care.
However, in an Aug. 26 letter to Doug Auld, chair of the WDGPH board, minister Eric Hoskins said the implementation of the new Healthy Smiles Ontario program was pushed back until January.
“The decision was made after thorough consultation and collaboration with our valued delivery partners, including public health units, to best inform and guide implementation of this streamlined program,” Hoskins wrote in the letter, which was presented at the Sept. 9 board of health meeting.
“While I feel it is important for children and families to benefit from this initiative as soon as possible, I share your commitment.”
The new Healthy Smiles Ontario program will amalgamate six different current dental funding programs: Healthy Smiles Ontario, Children in Need of Treatment, Ontario Works, Ontario Disability Support Program, Assistance for Children with Severe Disabilities and preventative services run through public health.
The fluoride varnish initiative is one of the programs run under the current Healthy Smiles Ontario program.
“The ministry hasn’t indicated to us what they will fund under the Healthy Smiles Ontario budget for 2016,” said WDGPH child health manager Dawna Monk Vanwyck.
“So it does make it somewhat difficult to say for certain, ‘yes we will be able to do this.’”
The program, started at Centre Peel Public School in Mapleton Township during the 2007-08 school year, targets “urgent” dental care needs for students experiencing pain, or who will be experiencing pain within weeks, primarily due to dental or tooth decay.
Since 2007 Princess Margaret (Orangeville), Brant Avenue (Guelph), Priory Park (Guelph), Westwood (Guelph), Victoria Cross (Mount Forest) and Hyland Heights (Shelburne) schools also offer the program.
Under the current funding model, professionals go into the schools and apply free fluoride varnish to every child’s teeth three times a year, as long as they have parental permission.
“We have certainly had very positive results in terms of children’s oral health through the fluoride varnish program at the schools where we have been doing this,” explained Vanwyck.
“Since we know that 50% of children by the time they hit Grade 2 in our communities have already had dental cavities and that those are largely preventable at that age, we know that fluoride varnish is a pretty good way to help prevent that.
“So I’m certainly hoping and anticipating that we will be able to continue to offer the program but I don’t have clarity from the ministry about that funding at this point in time.”
Vanwyck said she anticipates that within the next month or so the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care will identify which dental programs will be funded through the new Healthy Smiles Ontario amalgamated model come January.
“The province has what they call technical groups actually working on what’s going to be funded, what the new fee schedules are going to be, so there’s a great deal of work that’s being done at the ministry level in terms of sorting out what will or will not be allowed,” Vanwyck explained.
“It’s such an important aspect of health that it is so easy to lose and it’s really not just about repairing cavities, it’s about ensuring that all of us, and certainly children, have good oral health right from the beginning of life.”
Until the new funding program is announced and defined, public health is continuing to run the fluoride varnish initiative with an application scheduled in schools this fall.
