GINO CIRILLO Manager Community Dental Services, Dental Health Services, Western Australia
Fissure Sealant Program Western Australian School Dental Service
The Western Australian School Dental Service (SDS) provides free emergency and general dental care to enrolled schoolchildren aged 5 to 16 years throughout WA via 126 fixed school Dental Therapy
children examined within the SDS in a calendar year, reported as Decayed/Missing/Filled Teeth or DMFT. The introduction of the universal free SDS in WA
Centres (DTCs) located in school grounds, serving 4–7 schools. In addition, 25 mobile DTCs provide services to outer metropolitan and rural WA. There are about 335,000 students enrolled in the SDS program, with near 300,000 occasions of service provided yearly. Since 1977, the SDS has annually recorded 12-year-old caries experience of a sample of
in 1974 and the introduction of fluoride to 90% of Western Australia’s drinking water has seen a dramatic decrease in the caries experience of 12-year-old children enrolled in the SDS. After a period of dramatic improvement between the 1970s and 1990s, the DMFT of enrolled 12-yearold students plateaued as shown in Figure 1 below. >
Figure1 WA School Dental Service caries experience, 1977–2011
The Health Advocate • MAY 2020
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