Upgrades are being made to dental clinics in Owen Sound and Markdale.
Through funding from the Ministry of Health, Program Manager Jason Weppler Weppler says Public Health undertook a $320,000 project to upgrade its dental clinics at the health unit in Owen Sound, which began on Jan. 10 and is expected to be competed by the end of the month.
The project includes building a third operatory for dental professionals to work in, installing a panoramic dental x-ray machine and new dental cabinetry, and creating an upgraded reprocessing room.
A $336,000 renovation was completed at the clinic at the South East Grey Community Health Centre in Markdale in mid-December, and included an improved reprocessing room and added charting room and storage, dental cabinetry, and a new dental chair.
Weppler says they applied for these capital grants in 2019 through the Ministry of Health’s Ontario Senior Dental Care program, with later receiving word of getting the grants around the summer of 2020.
“With the newly launched Senior Dental Care program we do need to make our clinic spaces accessible and accommodating for our seniors and just knowing that we are looking at increased clientele. We did want to certainly at our Owen Sound clinic here at the Grey Bruce Health Unit, want to add a third operatory so we can just service more clients in a timely fashion,” says Weppler.
Weppler says public health has re-applied to receive funding to add a fixed dental clinic and operatory in Bruce County, as it is currently serviced by only mobile clinics. The application was sent out early January.
“So when we did initially apply back in the fall of 2019 we did put three capital funding requests forward, two were approved, both were in Grey County as it turns out so in Owen Sound and Markdale. The ministry has since come back to us and encouraged us to re-apply for the funding that we requested in Bruce County,” says Weppler. “We would like to have a permanent fixed operatory with all the additional services that would come with that, so we are optimistic that the funding we applied for early in January, we should hear this spring and hopefully move forward with the fixed operatory in a location in Bruce County.”
The Grey Bruce Health Unit says its oral health programs that include in-school screenings and free dental services for eligible low-income children and seniors have continued over the course of the Covid pandemic.
says many health units in the province suspended their oral health programs during the pandemic.
“We are one of the few areas in the province that has continued offering these much-needed services to eligible clients,” says Weppler.
Grey Bruce Medical Officer of Health Dr. Ian Arra says it wasn’t an easy decision to commit to providing oral health services to the most vulnerable while the health unit team was responding to the emergency.
“However, we had the utmost confidence we could deliver thanks to the unwavering commitment of our staff and managers to serve the community and by utilizing evidence-based emergency management and best management practices,” says Arra.
Weppler says the health unit oversees four mandated oral health programs with their partnership with four local school boards.
The assessment and surveillance programs involves dental hygienists screening children at all Bluewater District School Board, Bruce Grey Catholic District School Board, private and Mennonite/Amish schools in Grey Bruce, and École catholique Saint-Dominique-Savio in Owen Sound.
Over 6,700 students were screened in 2019/20. It then dropped to over 1,400 in 2020/21 due to the pandemic-related school closures. Weppler says so far this year, over 3,400 students have been screened.
“We’re on target to have all eligible students screened this year,” says Weppler.
In addition, the health unit also runs a Healthy Smiles Ontario program that provides free preventative, restorative and emergency dental services for eligible children and youth who are 17 and under, with a separate program providing the same service and dentures for eligible seniors ages 65 and older.
In 2019, about 7,000 clients were seen at public health dental clinics in Owen Sound, Markdale, Walkerton, and Wiarton in 2019, with that number dropping to under 2,200 in 2020, and just over 2,000 in 2021.
Public health also oversees the Children’s Oral Health Initiative, which is a Health Canada program geared to increase access to preventative oral health services for Inuit and First Nations children up to the age of seven.
This program, however, has been put on hold during the pandemic a result of a mutual agreement reached between public health and Indigenous partners, but is expected to relaunch over the winter season.