Gold Fields Ghana Foundation, Pepsodent extend oral care to pupils at Damang

Gold Fields Ghana Foundation (GFGF), in partnership with Pepsodent Ghana, has marked this year’s World Oral Day celebration at Damang, one of the host communities of the mining company.

World Oral Day is held every March 20 and this year’s celebration was themed: “A happy mouth is a happy mind”. It brought together over thousand school pupils drawn from the host communities.
Dr. Victor Paintsil, a Dental Surgeon from the Tarkwa Municipal hospital led dental personnel to offer dental services to the school pupils.

Scaling and polishing machine were used to offer dental services to the beneficiary pupils. Tooth removal and extractions were also carried out by the dental team, which discovered that six out of ten pupils had multiple cavities.
Dr. Victor Paintsil, who disclosed this to the media, indicated that all the screened pupils had conditions that required treatment at the hospital.

The cause of the cavities, he explained, was as a result of diet.

“They eat food that contain sugar either confectionaries or sweet. The gum feed on the sugar and produces acid and gives rise to …”
The Tarkwa Municipal Hospital Dental Surgeon nevertheless commended GFGF for the intervention.

He said looking at the rise in cases of cavities among school pupils, sale of sugary foods on school premises should have been bed banned but he maintained that he did not have that power to order the ban.

School kids, he said, should be encouraged to eat fruits instead of sugary food. Victor Paintsil also observed that dental services at Enchi, Nsuaem and Western North are not enough.
He conceded there may be dental equipment in some of the hospitals, but there are inadequate personnel to handle them.

This, he said, has resulted in people who have simple dental issues ending up on hospital beds.  “A simple toothache spreads and ends up in surgery or death. If dental services were closer to them, simple dental issues would not result in dead and quackery,” he said.
Ayesha Muhammed Aubyn (Mrs), an official of the mining company told the media the celebration of the day would not be a nine day wonder.

Though she conceded this is the maiden edition of the celebration, the impact it had had on the pupils was enough reason to celebrate the day every year.

She said before the celebration, the mine had become aware of referral cases in the area of dental care.

So they have decided to use the day to undertake oral screening and education.“So today, we have two sessions-education session and oral care”.
The Chronicle can report that participating schools were given education on how the children should brush your teeth especially with fluoride toothpaste to fight cavity.
The pupils were given oral kits such as Kel pepsodent toothpaste. That apart, they were also given free mathematical sets plus rain coats and others.

 

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