British Columbia autistic girl turned away by dental clinic

Post Reply New Topic

Damn right the college backs the dentist.

He offered a perfectly tenable solution: he was prepared to have her treated under sedation. When her father refused (which was a perfectly reasonable reply), the opportunity for an ongoing dentist-patient relationship was compromised. She won't open her mouth and let the dentist and the hygienist do their work. The father won't allow his daughter to be sedated. What options are left?

Now there is a human rights question to be answered here. How far must a health professional go to accommodate the special needs of a patient? This young woman is, after all, entitled to dental care. But is dental care under sedation an unreasonable accommodation? I think it is a real question that only the Human Rights Tribunal is going to be in a position to answer.

It would help if she went in and the dentist showed her a model of the teeth and explained what he would do,then she would have a visual.Or if she could see other people getting their teeth cleaned.It would not be scary then.

I'd like to know why sedation is a problem. I've had it for several procedures and it's not that big a deal. Perhaps she has a bad reaction to it.

I agree that tying her down and bracing her jaw open has more place in a Saw movie than any reality I want to be part of.

Sedation freaks me out,I'd rather be awake.I was awake for my first C-section so I have no problem with it,I want to know what is going on.

It wasn't bad,you could feel the tugging but it only lasted an hour.I had an epidural.It didn't work with my second birth,I only got numb to the knees so I had to be knocked out,then you have more problems with breathing when you wake up,you have to cough to get the fluid out of your lungs,it's not fun coughing or laughing after a section.And if you are awake you get to see the baby right away,instead of waking up groggy in a recovery room with the person next to you screaming because their knee hurts.

I've been knocked out a few times and had various reactions depending on what concoctions they use. One time I was seriously nauseous, another I was all twitchy. It's not pleasant, but really there's nothing about going to the dentist that is.

The dentists are trained in dentistry, not on magic. If a child is kicking, flailing and screaming and refusing to open their mouth, it is a dangerous situation. There are sharp tools that could be extremely damaging, and dentistry requires a fair amount of accuracy to fix a problem. It is the **parents'(! !! !)** responsibility to prepare the child and get them comfortable for a visit to the dentist! If they can't do it, then sedation is a must. If they refuse sedation then they are subjecting the child to torture and neglect by way of letting the kid's teeth to rot out. Not to mention the fact that tooth decay has been shown to be linked to heart problems.

My youngest son had started to get decay at the top of his two front teeth. I had to restrain him to brush his teeth and apply a topical protectant every day. He is now much better and tolerant of people going in his mouth, but it is MY responsibility as his parent to make sure that my child's dental hygiene is taken care of on a daily basis so that he doesn't have to get major surgery that rotted out teeth and jawline can necessitate. A dentist is there to fix problems *IF* the parent exhausts reasonable available options to help the kid. It doesn't sound like these parents are being reasonable.