Massachusetts Personal Injury Library
Lack of children's dental care can be life-threatening
Boston child injury attorney Thomas M. Kiley concentrates on legal issues surrounding children’s health. One result of children being uninsured can leave them without dental care. According to the Children’s Defense Fund, in the case of one child, this lack of dental care cost him his life. Deamonte Driver, a seventh grader from Prince George’s County, Maryland, died of complications from an abscessed tooth on February 25, 2007. If his parents had dental insurance, his life could have been saved by routine dental visits and an $80 extraction of the infected tooth.
When Deamonte complained of a severe headache and toothache, his mother wasn’t able to find a dentist who would accept Medicaid patients. When she took him to a hospital emergency room, he was treated with medicine for a headache, sinusitis and a dental abscess and sent home. When he got much sicker at home, he was rushed back to the hospital for surgery but the abscessed tooth had spread to his brain.
Fewer than one in three of Maryland's 500,000 children who are Medicaid recipients received any dental services last year. Only 900 of the state’s 5,500 dentists accept Medicaid patients because of the program’s low reimbursement rate and bureaucratic red tape. It can be difficult for families to be able to arrange dental appointments if they don’t have transportation or phone service.
As a result of this tragic death, a team of Black dentists have established the Deamonte Driver Dental Project that provides mobile dental services to prevent similar tragic deaths in the future. Dentists Dr. Hazel J. Harper and Dr. Belinda Carver-Taylor and 50 colleagues established the Deamonte Driver Dental Project. Established in November 2008, the project aims to “stamp out the epidemic of tooth decay by increasing access and providing early intervention.” The project states its mission: “We must transform a culture of crisis into a culture of prevention. Dental decay is a preventable disease. The ultimate goal is to create a successful, sustainable model program for other counties.”
The project is a school-based, grassroots effort that focuses on underserved children from low-income families in Prince George's County. It is sponsored by the Robert T. Freeman Dental Society Foundation, an association of Black dentists from Washington, DC, and Maryland, with the involvement of local businesses and churches. The Foundation is a local chapter of the National Dental Association.
The Deamonte Driver Dental Project works with nine Prince George's County elementary schools and relies on principals, school nurses and parents to identify children in need of help using criteria such as eligibility for free school lunches. Children are provided diagnostic, preventive and simple restorative dental services, like fillings, in a specially customized dental van that pulls up to school sites. In just four days in February 2009, the group screened 170 children at Seat Pleasant Elementary School. Each child received a report card to take home recommending follow-up dental services—either preventive, routine or emergency. The dentists found 32 children who required emergency services for problems like abscesses, acute gum disease and teeth rotted down to the nerve centers.
The project’s overall objectives are to expand access to quality oral health care; to increase the number of providers in the dental safety net; grow the number of children connected to a "dental home" for continuity of care; establish a “Children's Dental Hotline”; and identify eligible children not currently enrolled in any government supported health coverage program.
Deamonte's death also influenced Congress to mandate the inclusion of dental benefits into legislation reauthorizing and expanding the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which was signed into law by President Barack Obama on February 4, 2009.
When you are interviewing Massachusetts child injury lawyers ask critical questions, like: how long have you been practicing; what is the largest settlement or verdict you've obtained, and do you have experience with child injuries? Kiley Law Group, located in Boston and Andover, Massachusetts takes time when speaking with you about your case and works with you on a contingent basis so there are NO FEES unless our trained Boston child injury lawyers wins your case. Call now for a FREE evaluation of your case – 1-888-208-1695.
