Child refugees will receive free oral health screenings in London this weekend thanks to a dental charity.
The Dental Wellness Trust will offer restorative dentistry and free oral health screenings to 35 child refugees and asylum seekers.
Taking place on Sunday 8 May in the boroughs of Barnet, Camden and Westminster, the ‘Livesmart Dental Care’ initiative hopes to bridge the gap where practices are unable to take on additional patients.
This comes after the charity was contacted by Westminster Child Services in March. Authorities issued an urgent request for routine oral health screenings on this group of vulnerable children.
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The charity will continue to provide oral health screenings and restorative dentistry over the next six months for the capital’s other child refugees and asylum seekers.
It is estimated some may need up to 20 fillings each, with many never having visited a dentist.
Essential treatment
Dr Linda Greenwall, founder of the Dental Wellness Trust said: ‘Without question, the impact of poor oral health on quality of life is of urgent importance for these populations who are outside their habitual healthcare system, have limited financial resources and have lost their social support network.
‘This is why urgent initiatives such as the Livesmart Dental Care programme are vital in providing essential treatment, interventions and preventative advice to these children and their parents, and help reduce the risk, in later life, for chronic diseases.
‘However, the government cannot expect dentists to fund these much-needed public health programmes. Good oral health is every child’s basic human right. It’s therefore shameful that certain children are being denied this because of so called “limited resources” by ministers.’
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