Markeshia Ricks Photo
Harp at Troup clinic opening.
When Toni Harp was growing up in Utah, her teeth hurt. A lot.
That’s not because factions in Utah wanted to ban fluoride form water. They did try to ban it. (They believed it was a Communist plot.) But they didn’t succeed.
Harp’s teeth hurt because she didn’t regularly get to a dentist.
“I remember when I was in high school. I had severe dental pain,” she said. “I hadn’t been able to get to [a dentist]. Honestly, my parents were the kind that, they waited until you had pain to actually go. My mother and father both worked a couple of jobs, so it was difficult to get an appointment. [Dentists] wanted their money up front; they had to wait until they had enough money. It took a while.
“My father said, ‘Well [the pain] won’t be as bad as childbirth.’ Guess what I know? It is. Because it’s chronic and it’s really severe pain.”
“When you think about the fact that dental disease is the most prevalent dental disease among children,” Harp said, “it’s really important for us to make sure that all of our kids have access to good dental health.
Harp drew on that experience to explain why she considers it so important that New Haven has opened five school-based dental clinics. (Read about that here.) A survey found that 35 percent of the students at one of the schools, Troup, have moderate to severe dental problems.
Contrary to popular opinion, the core of the problem isn’t poverty, Harp said: The state legislature raised Medicaid reimbursements rates enough that dentists are willing to see patients on assistance.
Rather, there are too few dentists around, she said. And many parents in lower-income neighborhoods are so busy working one, two, or three jobs that they, like Harp’s parents back in the day, have trouble arranging to bring the children to the dentists. “Oftentimes people who have these jobs, if they take time, off they’re penalized,” Harp said.
Adult patients, on the other hand, often have trouble affording the dentist because they either lack insurance or because their insurance doesn’t cover enough of the bills, she said.
Harp discussed the matter at length on her latest appearance on WNHH radio’s “Dateline New Haven.” She also discussed efforts to give teens constructive ways to spend their time, as well as a safe haven, in the city. And she added her endorsement of the “Greatest Small City In America” hashtag movement.
Click on the above sound file to hear the program.
