With over 50 percent of Nigerian population
battling with poorly arranged teeth, experts
have decried dearth of orthodontist
specialists in the country, saying Nigeria has
only 41 orthodontists serving a population of
170 million people.
Top members of the Association who spoke
to journalists during their 10th Annual
Conference in Lagos explained that the
dearth of orthodontists was affecting
treatment of patients, hence the need for
steps to be taken to increase the number.
The members who took turns to address
issues concerning the practice in Nigeria
stressed the need for massive awareness
and access to orthodontic care for
underserved populations across the
country. “We hope to achieve this through
orthodontic screening and educational
programmes in various schools.”
Speaking, the immediate past President of
the Association, Prof. Olayinka Otuyemi,
said a country like Brazil has over 250,000
orthodontists, whereas Nigeria has a paltry
41 of them.
“We need to develop capacity and
government really needs to come in to
improve facilities for training because most
of our hospitals in terms of facilities are not
doing well,” he said.
Olayinka noted that over the years, the type
of patients seeking orthodontic treatment
has changed from adolescent patients to
adult patients, adding that globally the
percentage of adults seeking treatment has
increased to 25 per cent.
“We need to understand ways of treating
adult patients, as they are quite different
from adolescents in terms of behavioural,
managerial and the problem they are
having,” he added.
On her part, the General Secretary of the
association, Dr. Nkiru Folaranmi, said
awareness and training of post graduate
students were needed despite the fact that
dentists find it difficult to settle in Nigeria.
According to him, part of the reason for the
dearth of orthodontists was because many
of them do not want to practise in the
country. “We are calling on young dentists
to major in orthodontics because only few
are present in the country and the workload
is overwhelming.”
He called on the government to focus on
improving graduate training programmes, so
that more specialists will be graduating in
medicine and dentistry.
The immediate past president of NAO, Dr.
Oluranti Da Costa, called on the government
to join the association in raising awareness
on the importance of the specialty. He
said orthodontics was not all about
cosmetic treatment, but therapeutic as
well. “We also tackle disfiguration in
patients with facial abnormalities.
The Vice President of the association, Dr.
Babtunde Ogunbanjo, said the notion that
orthodontic treatment was only meant for
children should be discarded as adult
patients were on the rise.
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