Dental health receives major boost
Dental patients with challenging cases will now receive prompt and efficient care following the training of technicians to produce advanced dental prostheses for the local and international markets.
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The training programme was initiated by the M&B International Dental Laboratories. The first batch of technicians has successfully completed the course in Accra.
Dental prostheses or implants are artificial teeth roots used in dentistry to support restorations that resemble a tooth or group of teeth.
Addressing a ceremony held in honour of the graduating technicians, the Managing Director of M&B, Dr Kwasi Nimako Boateng, said until recently, dentists in Ghana had to rely on laboratories abroad for advanced fabricated prostheses.
“This, coupled with unreliable laboratory support, came with long waiting times for patients, a situation that made dentists shy away from challenging cases,” he said.
He added that the new dental technicians would create products that met the preferred standards or expectations of dentists and patients.
As part of its corporate social responsibility, M&B also conducts dental research in collaboration with corresponding faculties of some top universities such as the University of Ghana Dental School to ensure optimal results in the production of prostheses.
The company also supports final year dental students by helping to fabricate prostheses for them at significant discounts to facilitate their training in restorative/prosthetic dentistry.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Charisma Dental Clinic, Osu, Dr Stephen Kwakye Ansong, who was the guest speaker at the graduation ceremony, advised the graduating class to develop an excellent eye-to-hand co-ordination, good colour perception, dexterity with small instruments and an interest in dental material science.
“You need patience to attend to a minute’s details. You should never take shortcuts. The temptation to rush because you may have many cases to attend to can eventually make you bad technicians,” he stressed.
The Vice-President of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA), Dr Sodzi Sodzi Tettey, said training the technicians was significant because there were only about 200 dentists helping to meet the dental health needs of the 24 million people of Ghana.
“Currently, apart from the shortages in the dental laboratory sector, we have massive gaps of over 6000 doctors, 10,000 nurses and 5000 midwives to meet Ghana’s health service delivery requirements. This is occurring at a time when the government is lamenting that over 90 per cent of its financial allocations to the health sector go into salaries and emoluments,” he pointed out.
He called for policies and strategies that would make the government support private initiatives like the project being undertaken by M&B.