It can be difficult for people living in the Kootenays to access specialized dental care, but the Elk Valley Hospital in Fernie is helping to fill in the gaps by offering services to the public that private dentist offices don’t provide.
Elk Valley Hospital’s Dental Clinic cares for people whose needs cannot be met by standard dental services. In particular, it is interested in expanding service for neurodivergent children.
Dentist Dr. Greg Allan said the clinic often sees people who need major dental procedures that require invasive operations and anaesthesia; people with disabilities and mobility issues who require specialized equipment to undergo a dental procedure; neurodivergent children who are prone to experiencing sensory overload at regular clinics; and lower-income people who can’t pay for dental surgery out-of-pocket.
The clinic will arrange for transport for people at assisted living facilities, so they can go to and from their dental appointments.
It also offers treatments that private dental clinics don’t, like SDF — a substance that is painted on teeth to halt cavities from progressing — or fissure sealants, which prevents bacteria from getting into nooks and crannies in the mouth.
Allan said said he’s particularly keen to expand offerings for neurodivergent children and he has appealed to Teck to help fund the clinic’s Child Health Medicine Program.
“My goal is to have these kids be seen more frequently, be treated more often, have their health monitored more closely and offer them access to care in a reasonable time frame,” he said.
He added that the hospital would like to be able to offer more examination under anesthesia, which is critical for children who are not capable of getting through an appointment in a conscious state, and expand services to help wider demographic of disabilities. Allan said that currently their services are primarily geared towards non-verbal autistic patients.
The clinic, which Allan referred to as “the powerhouse for dental,” serves patients from across the Kootenay region, often from Cranbrook, Invermere, Castlegar and Creston, and from neighbouring Alberta. Its catchment area numbers approximately 60,000 people.
The services it offers are fairly unique given that it is the only hospital-based dental clinic of its kind in the region, and are geared towards people who would have trouble obtaining dental care elsewhere. Allan said that although dental care is available at East Kootenay Regional Hospital in Cranbrook, it isn’t as comprehensive and less resources have been devoted to it.
Allan said that what he’s heard from patients is that it’s difficult to get adequate dental care in B.C if your needs are greater than the average person.
“We had a patient recently who had taken out a second mortgage on their house to pay for dentures,” he said.
Meanwhile, a family from Cranbrook “had been on the wait list in Vancouver for general anesthesia and they had been waiting for over a year.”
Allan said it can often be a major financial and time burden for Kootenay families to travel to Lethbridge, Kelowna or Vancouver to receive services, and having something closer to home makes a difference.
“It’s really unreasonable for someone to take a couple days off of work and get a hotel, hope the dental treatment isn’t delayed. It’s super tough,” he said. “Wait lists don’t move and when they end up not getting their care, they get referred to us.”
Allan stated that the wait list at Elk Valley Hospital is currently seven weeks for children and eight weeks for adults, whereas when he worked at B.C Children’s Hospital in Vancouver the wait list was months-long for children and almost one year for adults.
“These patients would not be normally be able to see a dentist,” said Allan.