Saving Lives, One Extraction at a Time

I'm not sure if you've had the chance to read this moving story from the Washington Post but, if you haven't, I strongly recommend you take a look here. It essentially reports on the case of a 12-year old boy, Deamonte Driver, who, because his mother wasn't able to afford an $80 extraction for him, passed away after the bacteria from his abscess spread to his brain. Here are some key excerpts:

"A routine, $80 tooth extraction might have saved him.

If his mother had been insured.

If his family had not lost its Medicaid.

If Medicaid dentists weren't so hard to find.

If his mother hadn't been focused on getting a dentist for his brother, who had six rotted teeth.

By the time Deamonte's own aching tooth got any attention, the bacteria from the abscess had spread to his brain, doctors said. After two operations and more than six weeks of hospital care, the Prince George's County boy died.

Deamonte's death and the ultimate cost of his care, which could total more than $250,000, underscore an often-overlooked concern in the debate over universal health coverage: dental care.

(...)

Fewer than 16 percent of Maryland's Medicaid children received restorative services -- such as filling cavities -- in 2005, the most recent year for which figures are available.

(...)

In spite of such modern innovations as the fluoridation of drinking water, tooth decay is still the single most common childhood disease nationwide, five times as common as asthma, experts say. Poor children are more than twice as likely to have cavities as their more affluent peers, research shows, but far less likely to get treatment.

Serious and costly medical consequences are "not uncommon," said Norman Tinanoff, chief of pediatric dentistry at the University of Maryland Dental School in Baltimore. For instance, Deamonte's bill for two weeks at Children's alone was expected to be between $200,000 and $250,000.

The federal government requires states to provide oral health services to children through Medicaid programs, but the shortage of dentists who will treat indigent patients remains a major barrier to care, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures."

It just sickens me that the state of Medicaid in our country is so poor and that health insurance remains so hard to come by for most individuals of low income backgrounds that lives such as this young boy's are so needlessly lost. To think that a simple extraction could've solved his problems and saved his family and care providers from having to confront this tragedy...