"COMPASSIONATE" SOCIALIZED MEDICINE AT WORK

Pray that YOU never have to depend on it

Each of the holes in four-year-old Kalissa McMahon's teeth was the size of a grain of rice. The pain kept her up at night, she was on a diet of mashed vegetables and Panadol and she had taught herself to use toothpicks to mine food out of her cavities. But it took a year before her wait on a public hospital queue finally ended last week. "Why can't you help me? Why do I have to wait?" she would ask her parents, who could not afford private care and were left with no answers.

An operation such as Kalissa's would cost an uninsured family about $3400. While children such as her are entitled to free dental treatment, in the public system there are too few dentists for the growing numbers of patients. The number of children under four who are admitted to hospital for dental treatment in NSW has risen by more than 80 per cent in the past decade, although the problem is largely confined to families who cannot afford insurance or private dental visits.

The head of pediatric dentistry at Westmead Hospital, Dr Angus Cameron, said four out of five children with decay were from poorer backgrounds. "Fluoride has helped rates of decay go down, but the decay that is left is in 20 per cent of the population," he said. "These are people who do not have access to medical services and have a lack of awareness of dentistry and oral hygiene."

Although Kalissa's teeth were brushed every day, she developed "nursing bottle caries", a common form of tooth decay caused by sleeping with full bottles. For children, multiple extractions or fillings are performed under general anesthetic. Kalissa was anaesthetised for 40 minutes while she had four teeth removed and two capped. Her mother, Tracy McMahon, had to explain that "going under" did not mean she would be "going underwater" and that "you will wake up again".

Ms McMahon and her husband, Errol Carusi, from Ingleburn, were originally told there was a six-month wait for surgery at Westmead. Instead, it took 12. In the meantime, the holes in Kalissa's teeth grew and she could not breathe without pain. "The nerve was exposing and anything she ate she had to be able to squash with her tongue without using her teeth," Mr Carusi said. "They said you have to wait your turn but this is a child ... Kalissa doesn't understand."

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL hospitals and health insurance schemes should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the very poor and minimal regulation.

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