work for Viet kids

. i r i By Laurence Wall , W’ 2 a "7. £7 ‘ , e g , A Tribune Medical Reporter D Stoicism, and the language barrier let Chau Tu Thai say, only two words while visiting the dentist’s office. . , . First, she said “uh” to register her discomfort as the freezing needle went in. ‘ i 7

Later she gave a cheery “bye” as she left the dentist and ‘ ' . r technicians who are in the process of fixing her much» : neglected teeth. s i W

_ a Chain ‘Tu Thai, 11, is one of the thousands of boat people who have arrived from squalid refugee camps in Southeast Asia to begin anew life in Canada.

Bin while the refugees have left behind their in

_ i Indochina, the young ones have brought with them serious ?

D ““* , dental problems, what dentists call “bombed-out _ 3 V mouths.”s’ » ” r . A , ’ ' l ,. V.

, To meet thisurgent need for dental care,several groups

organized a free dental program in January for the Viet- . ; namese children. s V g i _, ~ ’ R » The program has already. treated ‘some 50 young refu-, gees and .will be continued ‘for “humanitarian and preven- : tive purposes,” said Winnipeg pediatrician Dr. Joseph

A Dr‘. Du, a Vietnamese who. himself. emigrated to Canada

18 years “ ago, said this week the health of the refugees ‘ quickly becamea major concern upon their arrival. , , s

~~

~ -- .J...ar-iI‘r-:u~Js.-

. g g , * ~ “Since 1975 with the Communist takeover, the situation i

. has i not been the best health-wise.” , ‘,4

Once the children were immunized and their general i

, health ensured, however, the dental problems came to the ;

fore. “Some children as young as 18 months had terrify= s ’.

ingly bad dental conditions,” he said. ‘i

' ~ 5

Dr. Dn approached Dr. Howard Cross, a pediatric ’den~ s tist and the director of the Pediatric Dental Service at th , ¢ ? ‘ Children’s Hospital, who agreed to help. '. D is it

Dr. Cross said the young refugees “ahnost without ex , s f ception” had bad teeth. e , i “The refugees were living a hand-to-mouth, existence in‘ . the camps and were more worried about where their next * meal came from than oral hygiene.”_.‘ s D g‘, The program offers quality treatment for the young- g sters, some of whom aremaking their first visit to theTlen- s , i tist, before eventually referring them to private dentists for \ i _ 3 continued care. 35? ' . ‘ o it Dr. Dennis MacArdle, a dentist intern at the Children’s ‘ s Hospital who has worked on 10 young refugees, said the a children “are great because they don’t seem to mind the ’ pain. Theyknow it’s for their own good.” ' e . , Even the problem of the language barrier is solved, he . said, by mimicking and by a form of show-and-tell. i 1 ‘\ Chau Tu" Thai remained mostly silent throughout the procedure. When it was over, , she was shown a box of ~ 7 pp . brightly-colored rings and was told by sign language to se- i 4 * lectone. i V ' " r ;f ‘is’ She hesitated a few ‘seconds andthen picked up ‘a ‘*‘=i with a large glass ruby. Her shyness gone for the moment, av she smiled at Dr. MacArd1e. . D A . “I Her parting “bye” exhausted most of her English vocab-,...,- ’ » * ary. ‘ D . D ' ' ’ 4 ‘ '

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