Thailand. Dental Care For Thai Students.

Well one thing that I really like that the school is doing if providing free dental care for students. This is offered to all students in the school and a lot of students take this option up. The other really good idea that happens at school is the Red Cross come in a big bus every 3 months or so and students old enough can donate blood which comes in handy here in Thailand as you can imagine the amount used with the way people drive cars and young kids ride their motorbikes.

The last 2 days there has been a mini dental centre set up in our sports hall. The students are taken from class a few at a time and go to the hall to have their teeth checked and any maintenance that needs to be carried out.

The set up is interesting as it isn’t what you would call the most perfect in sterile conditions but it all seems to work well. They had 3 air compressors just outside the entrance to the sports hall that provided suction for the dentists.It again isn’t a high tech set-up with a piece of hose that then converts into water pipe that runs along the floor and the dentist’s instruments connect onto little nipples that have been drilled and screwed into the water pipe. This was all powered by a small generator. It’s very basic but works really well.

There were 4 dentist’s chairs/beds set-up and also there were plenty of assistants to help. The dentists went about their work and from what I seen it looked very professional. I wish this sort of thing happened at school back in Australia especially when I was a kid as dentists didn’t get visited very often through fear because of all the stories of pain that was meant to be associated with a dentist visit.

I didn’t find out until I was much older that a lot of the stories were just myths and there was hardly any pain when having basic work done.

This sort of set-up just wouldn’t be possible in Australia as there would be so much red-tape to get through as in permits for this and that, public liability and health and safety it would make it near impossible. This is one good thing at times in Thailand; there isn’t a need for all the crap at times that you have to go through in Farang land.

So the students lined up with their paperwork from previous visits in hand waiting to see the dentist and get any work that needed done.

There were plenty of instruments on the long table with many used ones sitting in stainless steel trays and the clean sterilized ones wrapped up in the green medical cloth you see at hospitals.


So the students laid back in the chairs/beds available and had the dentists go to work. It was good seeing many students had taken the option of free dental care as your teeth are so important and with the amount of sweet sugary foods that they need to keep an eye on their teeth.

So dental care is alive and well here in Thailand and seeing this actually made me ring my dentist to have my teeth cleaned on Sunday. I haven’t been for just over a year I seen on my dental record card but I thought it hadn’t been that long ago but again the dates don’t lie. So on Sunday it will be off for a scrape and polish and the really weird feeling of your teeth being so clean without all the plaque and gunk stuck to them.

Brunty
Click here for photos in 5 different sizes