Patrick Rowe: Dental therapists could boost access to dental care

This commentary is by Michelle Fay, who is director of the Vermont Paid Sick Days Campaign and a former state representative from St. Johnsbury.

This commentary is by Dr. Peter Galbraith, who practiced dentistry in Vermont, served as a public health official in New York, Connecticut and Vermont, and was an adviser to several federal agencies including the Centers for Disease Control and the Food and Drug Administration. He lives in South Burlington.

State officials, advocates and providers agree that not enough low-income Vermonters are getting in to see a dentist, but a fight is brewing in the Legislature about how to change that.

Last year a bill to license dental practitioners, who could perform oral health services at a dentist’s discretion, was derailed, but lawmakers in the House and Senate have reintroduced it this year.

For years, I watched people suffer in pain, contract dangerous infections, and lose their ability to chew their food and their desire to smile all from a preventable disease that as a dentist, I was trained to treat — tooth decay.

At our free clinic in Barre, we treat hundreds of patients from nearly 50 different towns in central Vermont.

Due to the power outages, flooding, and devastation in Vermont caused by Tropical Storm Irene, the Department for Children and Families(DCF) is able to provide REPLACEMENT BENEFITS to current 3SquaresVT participants who lost food due to the storm.