GREECE - It
was the first time in weeks Anthoula Papazoi had cooked meat. She had stewed
the cut of beef, donated by a friend, on a low flame all morning. But now the
casserole sat untouched, as Papazoi fretted about her 13-year-old daughter
Nikoleta's tooth.
“Do we have painkillers?” she asked,
rummaging through a kitchen cabinet. “I'm going crazy.” “No, we don't. Go get
ready for the dentist,” Papazoi said. “Do we have milk?” Nikoleta asked. She
pulled at a piece of masking tape that held closed the refrigerator door,
reached in and grabbed a carton of milk. In a tall white mug she mixed the milk
with chocolate powder and five spoonfuls of sugar, and then slumped into a
chair. “Get up and go,” her mother ordered.
In few places are the wounds of Greece's economic
depression more evident than in the mouths of the nation's children. By most
indicators of dental health, Greece is one of the unhealthiest places in
Europe. The number of Greeks 16 years or older reporting unmet dental care
needs was 10.6 percent in 2013, according to Europe's statistical agency
Eurostat. That compares to a European Union average of 7.9 percent.
Dental problems are particularly acute among
children, according to a recent survey by the Hellenic Dental Federation, a
supervisory body. And the financial crisis has made things worse. In the decade
up to 2014, 60 percent of all dental problems in 15-year-olds were left
untreated for at least a year, up from 44 percent in the previous decade.
Almost all the five-year-olds surveyed - 86.8 percent - suffered dental
problems that had not been treated, the survey found.
“Teeth are unfortunately considered a
luxury,” said Niki Diamanti, a dentist who works at Hatzikosta Hospital, one of
two public hospitals in the northwestern town of Ioannina. “If, five years ago,
people went to the dentist once a year, now they go every five years.”
In Greece's case, the situation is
remarkable because the dental problems are not primarily caused by changes in
daily oral hygiene, experts say. Rather, children are developing tooth diseases
for reasons related to the country's six-year economic depression.
First, money woes have led to fewer dentist
visits. Disposable incomes in Greece have shrunk by about 30 percent since
2009. More than 1.2 million Greeks - one in four working-age people - are
unemployed. Forty percent of children live in poverty, according to the U.N
children's agency UNICEF, more than in places such as Chile, Turkey and Mexico.
As well, the publicly funded system of free
or low-cost medical care that millions of Greeks relied on for decades has
shrunk, largely because of public spending cuts demanded in exchange for the
326 billion euros ($354 billion) in financial aid Greece has received since
2010. Per capita health spending fell 9 percent a year between 2009 and 2012.
The result: More than 8 percent of Greeks
skipped dentist visits in 2013 because it was too expensive, well above the 5.1
percent European average, according to Eurostat.
The financial crisis has also driven a surge
in the consumption of cheap, high-sugar foods, dentists say. After dipping for
a couple of years, sales of sugary snacks at supermarkets picked up again in
2013, according to Euromonitor, a consumer goods research group.
Greece's bad teeth may be storing up
problems for the future. Studies around the world have identified links between
bad oral health and chronic illnesses such as cardiovascular diseases, the
world's number one killer. Severe gum disease is associated with diabetes and
coronary artery disease, according to several medical studies. Scientists are
still debating whether dental problems cause other health conditions, or are
merely associated with them.
Doctors and scientists have long associated
dental health with economic development, largely because good teeth are
correlated with access to education. Pain from dental diseases keeps children
in many developing countries from their studies, according to the World Health
Organization.
Πηγή: ewn.co.za
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