Dr. Caroline Robins:

I will give the Senator an example from this week. I see it all the time. I treat a lot of children. I enjoy treating children. Treating children is a different skill set. I treated a ten-year-old boy this week who would have gone to the dentist very regularly. His mother would have taken him yearly to have his teeth checked. It was his first time coming to see me. Between the school system and Covid, the boy was ten and had not received his second class check up so his molars are hyper-mineralised so they break down. He is ten years old and presents to me. I am talking to his mother about having to extract the tooth of a ten-year-old boy. It is through no fault of his mother, who has done her best. The service simply is not there. I am consoling a mother who feels like she has let her child down and I am consoling a child who is only ten and has to have extremely difficult and nasty treatment. Members know what it is like to go to the dentist. Imagine if you are ten years old and I am going to have to do what I am going to have to do. It is not nice and I do see it. It just saddens me. The earlier the second class check up happens, the better. That is when the early things can be picked up and prevention can be instilled. When we see them when they are in sixth class or are seeing them for the first time when they are in secondary school, it is too late. The horse has bolted. The disease is there. We are fixing instead of preventing.