This comes from a grandmother in Montana who will be testifying before the state Legislature. She made a promise to her granddaughter and she plans on keeping it. Read on -
Putting a Stop to Ogres
She hopped everywhere as a toddler. Her bright eyes twinkled, her exuberance for life apparent. At her second birthday party, her guests followed her lead, hopping through a lively game of musical chairs. Then one day the hopping stopped and the bright eyes fixed in a dulled stare at something we could not see. Her skin took on a whitish pallor. Her once infectious laughter was replaced by a nervous clacking of her teeth. Instead of a smile, all she could muster was a top lip curled under in an upside down u - the bottom lip sucked in.
Her young mother, unaware, had allowed the child to undergo passive restraint
dentistry in a torturous 5 hour episode. Eight baby teeth were capped with a shiny
silver colored metal. Four top front teeth were given a whitish facade on the front.
All done behind closed doors at Providence Medical Center in Missoula, Montana.
During the five hour procedure the two year old child was wrapped into a strait
jacket like device, her mouth was propped open with a mechanical dam, and the
procedure conducted despite her pain and terror. Although she regained a normal skin tone and laughs and smiles in a normal way, she has never regained the confidence or the exuberance she was born with. The child has never been the same.
After the family realized what had happened, they found a different dentist. That
dentist said he would not have treated the child in that way, and in fact, the child
has never gotten a cavity in the uncapped teeth, which the dentist also cites as an
indication of unnecessary capping.
The children at school comment on her teeth. Her gums are red and sore around
the capped teeth, so she is in physical discomfort. I asked her at age five if she
remembered getting the caps on her teeth. "Yes," she said. "It was sad." Now she
is six, and finishing her last couple weeks of kindergarten. She had lost one front
tooth a few weeks earlier, revealing a beautiful new permanent tooth, a joyous
occasion. As the second capped tooth was pushed out by the new permanent
tooth growing under it, it jutted out. "I have ogre teeth." the child said to me sadly,
on the way to school one day.
"Who told you that?" I asked her? "Me." she replied.
"No, darling," I told her. "Your teeth are perfect and beautiful. All the metal teeth
will fall out and new white ones will grow. But it was an ogre who put the metal
caps on your teeth! A bad dentist who got paid a lot of money by the government
for putting caps on babies teeth."
"I did not know that," said the child.
"You were too young to understand until now," I told her. "Also because of the
ogre dentist, people who love you have decided to put a stop to dentists capping
baby teeth. Do you like that idea?"
"Yes!" exclaimed the child, exuberantly. I took that as a hopeful sign.
The Medicaid Program, created by Lyndon Johnson, pays a profitable sum for babyroot canals, caps and extractions. Certain dentists and dental chains "go after" Medicaid patients, subjecting them to this cruel and unnecessary dental work,cashing in on the government payment. Dentists with integrity would not do this work period. We must work in our state legislatures to see to it that payment for unnecessary work on baby teeth is stopped.
Will you help put a stop to the torture of our poor children - the most defenseless segment of our society?
Will you help me put a stop to these ogres?
Rena Wetherelt – Videographer
Sky Country Journal ~ Telling Stories of the Rural Northwest
www.skycountryjournal.com
rena@skycountryjournal.com
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