News Archive

When orthodontist Dr John Owen and his wife Jan visited Halls Creek last May with the Madjitil Moorna choir, teachers at the school were thrilled because no dentist or dental therapy van had visited the school for the past 18 months.

The only dental care was provided at the hospital clinic by a visiting government dentist every six weeks.

As well as screening the local school children during their stay, Dr Owen and Mrs Owen, a former dental nurse and dental health educator, provided dental education sessions.

They did not have access to the dental facility so they conducted the screening of 133 school children under the age of 11 at the Halls Creek District High School.

Of these, 38% required urgent dental care for serious problems such as dental abscesses and gum boils and a further 18% needed treatment within six months. Only 44% of the group was free of caries.

Dr Owen, an Honorary Clinical Consultant with the Faculty, said one-third of the children had massive cavities and suffered continual pain and chronic infection.

It was this experience that led the Owens to set up the Kimberley Dental Team (KDT), which they have since built up to such an extent that they have 35 dentists and assistants willing to volunteer in the Kimberley to complement stretched State government resources. Most of the volunteer dentists are WA graduates.

As a result of their trip, the decommissioned Dental Health Services van was recommissioned and returned to the Halls Creek School last July with a school dental therapist and nurse, who were able to start treating some of the children screened by Dr Owen.

After their initial visit, the Owens took a volunteer team to the Kimberley in August. They were able to support the school dental van and provide further treatment for adults and children, having been granted access to the dental facilities at the hospital.

The team also organised for a four-year-old boy in chronic pain to be flown to Perth for a general anaesthetic and removal of 10 of his 20 primary teeth. After his treatment, he was able to eat a hot meal again after many months of chronic pain.

The team also visited schools and outlying communities, emphasising dental education and providing tooth brushing packs in all the places they visited.

“We can do the emergency care but there is no point just spending money on acute dental care, we have to focus on prevention education and early care,” said Dr Owen, who has been a member of the Dental Board of Western Australia for 13 years and President for the past 10 years.

The KDT has been gathering momentum and is working with the Faculty’s Centre of Rural and Remote Oral Health, Dental Health Services and Aboriginal Medical Services. The aim is to support and visit about 100 remote Indigenous communities in the Kimberley region.

It is known that many Indigenous people do not have a level of oral health that allows them to eat nourishing foods and that dental disease can result in higher levels of malnutrition, low birth weight, preterm births and cardiovascular disease.

Dr Owen said there was $1.3 billion available for Aboriginal health initiatives in Australia and the group hoped to receive some funding from the pool for their work.

As Dr Owen holds a pilot’s licence, they plan to transport dental teams by helicopter on a fly-in, fly-out basis into remote areas to avoid long road trips.

This year they have already made another visit, to the Warmun and Frog Hollow communities to provide screening, dental health education and provide emergency care at the request of Gija Total Health.

They will head north again soon, making two trips with different teams for the entire months of May and August. The teams will use Halls Creek Hospital as the base and visit Balgo (five hours drive, one hour by helicopter), Ringers Soak (three hours drive, 45 minutes by helicopter) and Yiyili Community.

The teams will include maxillo-facial surgeon Dr Dennis Gregory, who is WA chairman of the National Dental Foundation, Dr Aggie Frydrych, an oral medicine specialist, John’s father, Dr Ray Owen and recent UWA dental graduate, Dr Daniel Cocker.

“Several members of the team, including myself, are either Adjunct Associate Professors or Honorary Clinical Consultants with UWA and so it is intended that final year students will also be rostered to join these trips next year,” Dr Owen said.

“And a very exciting new development is that we have just established a joint venture with the WA arm of the National Dental Foundation to support the Sisters of Mercy and their four communities at and around the Gibb River communities.

“Eastern States dental equipment has been donated and in May, Dr Dennis Gregory and I will assist with mutual staffing and helicopter transfers to and between the communities to maximise basic care so desperately needed.”