The profession of dentistry, and oral health in general, has failed to establish that kind of foundational approach, so we have stepped up. My colleagues are, for the most part, trained in special needs. They are often pediatric dentists. Their struggle is that they watch their clients hit the period of early adolescence and early adulthood and they're no longer able to treat them in the systems.
Nowhere in our Canadian health care system do we provide for this, so we've tried to establish a project of creating the basic foundation on which you assume everyone is entitled to a quality level of health care. We as a country agreed—and certainly we hear Minister Holland repeating it—that oral health is health. The chief dental officer of Canada says so.
By failing to provide it to persons with disabilities, we literally are failing to provide something that the country and its senior ministers of the government acknowledge is health care. They are unable to get it because of this challenge.