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f <br /> POSITION PAPER: DENTAL HEALTH <br /> CHAPEL HILL-CARRBORO CITY SCHOOLS <br /> HEALTH COMMITTEE <br /> The Chapel Hill-Carrboro School Health Committee has recently <br /> learned that because of federal budget cuts at North Carolina <br /> Memorial Hospital, many residency programs are being cut. The <br /> General Practice Residency Program at the Hospital Dental Clinic has <br /> been cut by one resident effective July 1, 1987. One more resident's <br /> position will be eliminated July 1, 1988. It has been decided to <br /> handle the cuts by deleting the resident's services from the Orange <br /> County Health Department effective July 1, 1987 and cutting one <br /> resident's services from the hospital effective July 1, 1988. <br /> The impact of the cut to Orange County, Health Department would be <br /> devastating to the dental health of county residents utilizing this <br /> service. It would eliminate the possibiity of preventive dental care <br /> for a significant segment of our population. In the 1985-86 fiscal <br /> year 643 new patients were seen in the Orange County Health <br /> Department dental clinics. Dental treatment visits numbered 4,847. <br /> Not only would the dental resident no longer provide care at the <br /> health department, but the attending dentists from the UNC School of <br /> Dentistry/NCMH would no longer be available. This impacts even <br /> further since dental students and dental auxiliary students could no <br /> longer rotate through the Orange County Health Department dental <br /> clinics without an atttending dentist on site. <br /> In order for the county to continue providing dental care at the <br /> Orange County Health Department it would have to assume financial <br /> responsibility for one resident. The annual cost would be <br /> approximately $25,000.00 to $29,000.00. <br /> The North Carolina Memorial Hospital made possible the grant to <br /> institute the program that set up the dental facilities at the Orange <br /> County Health Department sites in 1980. When grant funding ended in <br /> 1983, North Carolina Memorial Hospital continued to fund the <br /> residency program. <br /> The Chapel Hill-Carrboro School Health Committee feels it is <br /> essential that dental services be continued at the Orange County <br /> Health Department. We support your efforts to attain this goal. <br /> /rp <br />