Ramsammy undeterred by dental school criticisms
Stabroek News
April 20, 2004
The Ministry of Health's plan to set up a local dental school has faced criticism from at least two dentists. However, Minister Dr Leslie Ram-sammy still feels it is the way to go.
Ramsammy had recently told this newspaper that plans are in train to set up a school to alleviate the shortage of dentists. He explained that the theoretical aspect of the training would be done at the University of Guyana while the practical course would be done at the Cheddi Jagan Dental School.
Well-known dentist, Dr Makepeace Richmond, in a letter to Stabroek News stated, "While medical and dental training have areas of overlap, dentistry is a quite a separate discipline. We shared classes [when he was learning] with the medics in physiology, pathology, histology, embryology, pharmacology, psychiatry (yes!), public health and jurisprudence."
Dr Joey Jagan also echoed Dr Richmond's criticisms in a letter to this newspaper.
Referring to all the other courses dentists do separately, Dr Richmond said the decision to have more dentists implies "a commitment to provide each new dentist with hardware needed to practise at least a chair and unit," which he said is not an inconsiderable undertaking.
According to him, the Cheddi Jegan Dental Centre is not equipped with certain equipment for such an undertaking and there is never enough material in the public system to sustain the dentists now working.
But Ramsammy pointed out that the criticisms have nothing to do with whether the country needs the school or not. "They are talking about capacity, about whether you have the people to teach the course."
He said when the Medical School at the University of Guyana came into existence there were not enough persons locally to teach the courses.
"Right now if we are to do it [commence teaching of prospective dentists] only some of the courses could be done. Other courses could not be done by what we have available in Guyana. We know that, that is the collaborative arrangements with our other sister organisations, Lan-cashire, Mexico and so on."
According to the minister, he wants to include the local professional group in as many collaborative arrangements as possible. He added that he is aware that while some courses will be shared between the medical and dental schools some aspects of anatomy and physiology, "will have to be a little different. For example, the mouth would be a more intensive type of anatomy so you may have to have a special component of the anatomy and physiology course to deal with that."
He explained that there would be an additional input than what is being offered now at the medical school and that some of the local dentists could assist in this area.
He told Stabroek News that he already has a draft curriculum and the ministry has already decided what could be done locally. It still has to agree on the curriculum since it is going to be part of the University of Guyana programme and it will have to go through the system.
"So people shouldn't think that what we are saying when we say we are going to start a dental school that we are going to have all of the courses being taught by local persons. We are going to have people coming in to provide the teaching and assisting in practical just like the medical school does now."
He added that while the medical school has external examinations all the courses are now being taught locally and that was not being done initially.
"We are going to go through the same experience for the dental school... There might be arguments as to why you cannot do it, but the argument cannot be that you don't have the local personnel. Because if you can indeed fill those gaps through your collaborative efforts and build capacity in the meanwhile, that is the idea."
He said the ministry hopes in its recruitment in the next year to hire some people permanently for some of the services.
The minister said he has an extremely ambitious plan where he and the ministry are working towards getting started by September. "However, more likely we are looking at September 2005, but we are working hard towards September 2004."
Some time will be spent selecting the persons needed for the school both administratively and technically and as a result they have already identified the persons locally and those that they have to recruit through collaboration.
"So it is a lot of logistical work that needs to be done. We don't have to get a building. That is already there. We have to upgrade because we have eight chairs and you may have to go to 30 chairs. The library needs to be built up. When Cheddi Jagan Centre was built, it was built with a library but the room does not make the library so now we will have to get the proper books and so on."
He said while he is interested in knowing why the school is the wrong way to go he pointed out that if the reasons were published in the Stabroek News then it is flawed reasoning.
He said that a lot of people are willing to support the venture pointing out that the medical school was a prime example.
Ramsammy told this newspaper that just as with the medical school, persons who become dentists can go on to post-graduate studies to specialise in certain areas. "But now at least we will have a core of people with collaboration that we can begin to send them to do post-graduate [studies]."
Dr Richmond feels the solution to the dental problem lies in public health measures that have an objective of attending to the defects of the very young, "so that at adulthood their needs will be a manageable level."
He said intense oral health education should be continued and also noted that it has been shown for over 50 years that environmental fluoride greatly reduces the incidence of dental decay.
"The vehicle best suited for its delivery in our country is cooking salt," he wrote.
However, Ramsammy said while these are all good suggestions that could be followed they should be twinned with the emergence of a dental school, as there are many people already who have dental problems.