Aggressive strategic planning for oral health in Kuwait: a decade of post-war successes

Strategic planning and implementation of oral health care and disease prevention programmes after the 1990/91 Gulf war are discussed. The key concept was to develop access to care and disease prevention for all Kuwaiti children in government kindergarten/primary schools and to eliminate emphasis on extractions and restorations. Resources were restored to pre-war levels and then increased. Prevention programmes for 150 000 children were established. Prevention funds increased from 7% to 20% of the oral health budget. Prevention-based dentists increased from 9.7% to 28.0% of staff. Rising caries trends were stabilized or reduced by up to 36.8%. Percentage of caries-free primary dentition in children increased up to 37.6%, permanent dentition up to 27.0%. A dentistry school was established

Oral health service in Kuwait: problems and future strategies

The aim of this article is to report on some areas of weakness in programs of the oral health services sector [OHSS] of Ministry of Public Health [MPH] and to suggest plans for the future

Demographic and clinical characteristic of patients attending the removable prosthetic unit

The clinical records of 1000 consecutive patients attending the Removable Prosthetics Unit, Specialist Dental Centre of the Ministry of Health were reviewed to analyse the demographic and clinical characteristics of theses patients, to assess the types of treatment requested and received, and to determine the utilisation rates by different population sub-groups. The non-Arab group does not make use of the facilities in proportion to its population. Males exceed females in utilisation. A high percentage of users are for full dentures or for replacement of a single tooth. The replacement rate of full dentures suggests over utilisation by dissatisfied patients. Treatment times compare favourably with that reported in England. Recommendations for improvements in services are made