Children’s dental wait-list down in Nunavut but still ‘concerning’: Health minister
780 young patients waiting for dental surgeries, down from 1,200 after COVID-19 pandemic
The number of Nunavut children waiting for oral surgeries is down to 780, from 1,200 during the COVID-19 pandemic. (File photo by David Venn)
The number of children waiting for oral surgeries in Nunavut is down since the COVID-19 pandemic, but the number on the list is still a “concerning” issue.
“It’s heartbreaking,” Health Minister John Main said in an interview Feb. 28 at the legislative assembly.
There are 780 children on the wait-list for general anesthetic oral surgeries, Main told MLAs that day.
“Children that are having dental issues, especially at that level of seriousness, it impacts their diet, their sleep, their education. You name it,” Iqaluit-Tasiluk MLA George Hickes said in response.
The number is down since the 2022 backlog caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, when there were more than 1,200 children on the wait-list, Main said, adding that in 2023 about 1,000 children received treatment.
Main didn’t say how long patients usually remain on the wait-list, as it depends on the ability to provide a particular service at a given time.
There are several ways Nunavummiut can access dental care: Iqaluit General Hospital; one of the three private dental care clinics in Iqaluit and Rankin Inlet; and southern health centres, including the health centre in Churchill, Man.
There are also dental workers contracted by the Government of Nunavut who visit all 25 communities, who can assist with less invasive dental issues.
Typically, those dental teams work from local health centres and schools. They include a dentist, a hygienist and some additional support staff, Main said.
Each community has a specific number of days allocated for when the dental service is available.
Currently, the dental teams are visiting several communities in all three Nunavut regions, according to the government’s 2025 winter clinical dental service schedule.
Brush and floss, quit chewin snuff, and stop drinking pop and slush. No more dental surgeries needed.
I think the most heartbreaking part of this story is that there are over 1200 kids in Nunavut that need oral surgery. A quick Google shows,
“Each year, roughly 19,000 children had dental surgery—mostly for fillings and extractions—and spent an average of 82 minutes in the operating room. Across the country, rates of day surgery operations, expressed as number of operations per 1000 children, ranged from a low of 8.4 in Ontario to a high of 97.2 in Nunavut.”
If Nunavut had the same rate as Ontario, that 1200 kids would be 104 kids. There are complaints about not receiving “southern health care”, but geez, talk about burdening the system. Quit giving kids pop and juice (especially in bottles for goodness sake), cut the sugary snacks way down, and brush their teeth.
I totally agree with you! It’s the parents job! They are supposed to take care of the child’s teeth!
Quit giving pops and junk!