Emily's Worldview

I've been thinking about teeth lately. Other people's, mostly, as I pretty much take mine for granted. Growing up with parents who were federal employees, dental care was always covered, even some of the cost of my braces to close the two matching gaps where no adult molars grew in. At 17, braces seemed a near-universal rite of passage, like taking the SATs.

But in my internship at an outreach center serving Atlanta's homeless population, I've realized what a blessing having lifelong access to dental care is. Most of our guests have had at least one tooth pulled for tooth decay, and many older adults are missing most of them. They may have had dentures at some point but in the chaos of their lives, they have broken or been misplaced. I honestly don't know how you manage when you have nothing to chew with and no way to control where your food comes from and what it is. Having no teeth slurs your speech and changes your appearance. There is an agency that provides free cleanings adn extractions; for too many of my guests, it is too late for that. For anything more serious, you have to pay. So they remain in pain and at risk for worse.

Recently, a young boy near DC died from complications related to an untreated abscess in his tooth, despite the fact that his mother had been trying to obtain care for him and his siblings. Today I heard the story of a working class woman in Atlanta who is struggling with mountains of debt from treatmes for complications from an abscess that she couldn't afford to treat, because she was uninsured. In America, in 2007, people are suffering from conditions that we have been treating since the middle ages.