Next Phase of the Toothpaste Trial
You may remember that back in July I once again assisted Dr Barry Stewart with recording for the Gudfala Tut Skul Projek (Healthy Tooth School Project). Well the children have been using the locally made toothpaste and brushing at school once a day, and hopefully at home once a day too, for 5 months now. It was originally intended to be 3 months but events conspired...
Last week we assessed the plaque levels again to compare them with the levels at the begining of the trial, and initial analysis shows that they are a lot lower 👍.
A chart from one of the classes showing each day that the children brushed at school.
Dr Barry had a go at recording for Lily one day.
Here's me recording for Dr Jenny with school nurse Priscilla in the background. She was very sweet and accommodating even though we completely took over her clinic.
We needed to mix up a bit more paste to supply the classes. This involved a cake mixer,
and a sausage maker to fill the re-usable bottles.
We assessed a junior class this morning who had not been on the trial, and preliminary results are that their plaque levels are way higher than those children on the trial.
Next step is for Dr Barry to write up the report and present it, along with the National Oral Health Survey report, to the Ministry of Health in November this year. Hopefully brushing in school every day will become required in every classroom across the country soon, at least for the early grades, to get the children into that good habit 😁.
We also hope that manufacture of locally made toothpaste will be done on a large scale, with some for sale, providing funding for free supply to the schools. Well done Dr Barry, you rock, even if you are an Aussie and you like football not rugby!
In between working, we squeezed in a social coffee with a few of our lovely friends from Marine Reach's health and training facility Family Care centre.
That's Debora from Italy, Martyn, Anna from USA and Mel from NZ.
