Seychelles
Adult Dental Service
The
Adult Dental Service is one of the 2 major units of the Seychelles Dental
Services. The aim of
the Adult Dental Service is to : “Meet the oral health needs
of the population of Seychelles, particularly the adult population.”
Services
are mainly provided by dentists in the district clinics, who are assisted
by trained Dental Surgery Assistants. Opening hours are normally Monday to
Friday, 8.00a.m. to 4.00p.m. Services are normally provided on an
appointment basis, and also on a first come first serve basis in the
mornings for those without appointments.
The
different components of the Adult Dental Service includes:
District
Dental Clinics
Specialised
Services
Dental
Laboratory
Equipment
repairs and Maintenance
Oral
Maxillo-Facial Surgery
Orthodontics
District
Dental Clinics:
The
adult dental clinics offer a range of services to the adult population as
well as children referred to them by the School Dental Service. The type
of services offered include: fillings, root canal treatment, extractions,
porcelain bonded to metal crowns, bridges and chrome cobalt dentures. Any
oral hygiene services required are referred to the dental
therapist/hygienist at the School Dental Service.
Specialised
services:
Oral
Maxillo-Facial Surgery : This
unit is based on the dental floor of the Surgical Out-Patients Unit (SOPU)
building, better known as ‘Yellow-Roof’, at Victoria Hospital. It is
normally operated by two oral maxillo-facial surgeons assisted by two
specialist dental nurses. It attends to all oral surgery cases referred by
dentists and doctors. Minor oral surgery procedures are carried out under
local anaesthetics in the dental surgery at Yellow Roof. The most common
of the minor procedures are impacted wisdom teeth. The more complicated
cases are done under general anaesthetic in the operating theatre at the
hospital. The most common of these cases are fractures of the facial
skeleton.
Visit
of an oral surgeon to Praslin and La-Digue takes place on a monthly basis.
Management of patients from
these two islands are similar to those of Mahe. After normal working hours during week days and on weekends, an
“on-call” emergency dental service operates through the casualty
service of the Victoria hospital
.
Orthodontics:
This unit is based on the dental floor of the Surgical Out-Patients Unit
(SOPU) building, better known as ‘Yellow-Roof’, at Victoria Hospital.
It is normally operated by two orthodontists assisted by specialist dental
nurses. It attends to the correction of irregular teeth, i.e malocclusion,
in order to improve the appearance and functions of the individual’s
teeth. The service is restricted for the moment to school children
although adult patients with functional disturbances may be considered.
Correction of occlusion are usually done through the use of either a fixed
or a removal appliance, which the patient have to wear for a determined
length of time. Patients for fixed appliance on Mahe are seen at
Yellow-Roof and those on Praslin and La-Digue are usually seen in their
respective clinic. Removable appliances are normally done at district
level. All services and appliances are free of charge to the patients. It is the dental therapists, operating either from district health
centres or school dental clinics, who upon detecting a problem in their
child patient, then refers to the orthodontist for opinion and necessary
treatment. Orthodontist visits to the district dental clinics are on a
monthly basis.
Dental
Laboratory :
The Dental laboratory is at present centralised and based on the dental
floor of the Surgical Out-Patients Unit (SOPD) building, better known as
‘Yellow-Roof’, at Victoria Hospital. It is operated by six dental
technicians and two assistant technicians who provide the necessary
laboratory back up for all the dentist on Mahe, Praslin and La-Digue in
the fields of plastic dentures and removable orthodontic appliances for
the orthodontists. Under normal circumstances plastic dentures are
completed within six to eight weeks. These are free of charge to the
patients. Repairs of plastic dentures are also carried out. Patients
normally report to their district clinics first and the repaired dentures
are usually ready the same day or the following day. At present all
advanced restorations such as bonded porcelain crowns, bridges and chrome
cobalt dentures for the public dental service are constructed in a private
laboratory and patients are charged the laboratory fee only.
Equipment
Repair and Maintenance
This unit is operated by two equipment technicians directly responsible
to the Director Dental Services. It takes care of repair and maintenance
of all dental equipment on Mahe, Praslin and La Digue. The service tries,
as far as possible to standardise all
its equipment in order to facilitate their servicing, as well as
the ordering and replacement of spares. Whilst breakdowns are attended to
as they occur, a preventive maintenance programme of all equipment is also
in operation. One characteristic of this programme is that the dental
operators, i.e dental therapists, dentists and dental surgery assistants
are also involved so that they can better acquaint themselves with the
functioning of the equipment they work with, and thus better able to
detect faults early. All faults are reported to headquarters (HQ) by phone
if urgent or by the usual work order.
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