A three-year-old girl, who has had severe tooth decay since she began teething, has had dental surgery cancelled twice in as many months.
“It’s horrific when an adult has their surgery cancelled,” said Johanna Willows about daughter Cosette Bellemare-Willows. “It feels especially awful when it’s kids.”
She said her child, who is in pain, attends the Health Sciences Centre children’s dental clinic, which treats those with special needs or abnormal dental issues.
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Cosette Bellemare-Willows, with older brother Leo, has had her necessary dental surgery cancelled twice in as many months.
“I see the other parents and the other kids in the clinic and they’re in really rough shape,” said Willows. “It’s not like we’re all sitting in urgent care whining about being there for four hours. This is actually a necessary surgery.”
Her child requires eight crowns, potential baby root canals, fillings and extractions. The surgery, that was scheduled for Aug. 9 at Misericordia Health Centre, was cancelled. Shared Health said it was cancelled because pediatric dentists were on vacation.
When Willows was able to get a Sept. 12 surgery date, she said she felt relieved that her daughter’s dental needs would be met. When that dental surgery was also cancelled, she contacted the Free Press and the HSC. She also informed Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara and Premier Wab Kinew.
“I’m frustrated,” said Willows. “It feels like a forgotten group. Dental surgery doesn’t seem as important as other surgeries.”
Approximately 950 pediatric dental surgeries were performed at the Misericordia Health Centre in 2023-24, while 327 procedures were performed at HSC Children’s Hospital, as reported by Shared Health.
The young patients and their families have suffered in silence as their surgeries kept getting delayed, Willows said.
“It feels like screaming into a void,” said the lawyer who has looked into taking Cosette out of province for private dental surgery but found that’s not a viable option, either.
“I don’t know what my alternatives are,” said Willows.
She said she worries that delaying the work on her child’s baby teeth will have a lifelong impact.
“The longer they rot in her mouth, the more likely the ones underneath are going to be rotten. They’ve got to take care of it with some urgency so her adult ones don’t come in rotten, too.” They’ve brushed their teeth twice a day with fluoride from the start but that hasn’t stopped Cosette’s teeth from decaying. “It’s kind of out of our control.”
She and Cosette’s dad sought opinions from three experts when her baby teeth came in “crumbled and decayed.”
“Everybody said the same thing — it can be from breastfeeding your baby at night,” or bottle feeding at night, Willows said. They were told the condition can also be genetic. “My mom had that problem when she was little. All her teeth had to be pulled,” she said. “It can also be from when the mom has a fever during pregnancy,” she said, noting she had COVID-19 during pregnancy.
“She doesn’t have any other disabilities. She just has really bad teeth.”
When asked about the surgery cancellations, a Shared Health spokesperson said in an email they sympathize with Willows “and appreciate the level of frustration she feels as a parent while waiting for her child to get the care she needs.” He said four patients and their families were affected when Cosette’s surgeries were cancelled.
While high-acuity patients continue to receive surgery in a timely manner, he said lower-acuity patients tend to wait longer and can be bumped for higher-priority cases.
“The availability of surgeons, physicians and staff can also be a factor — particularly during summer months when many plan vacations, as that can reduce surgical capacity, particularly in specialized areas such as pediatric dentistry,” the Shared Health spokesman said.
Although the dental surgery for her child and others is considered “necessary” and not elective, Manitoba Health doesn’t cover all of the costs associated with it, said Willows. She was told the crowns, fillings and extractions would cost $4,500 without dental coverage.
The spokesman for Shared Health said private insurance typically covers a percentage of overall dental surgery costs, “greatly reducing the outstanding balance for patients and/or their parents, guardians or caregivers.”
He said families with a combined annual household income of less than $90,000 and who lack private dental insurance qualify for the Canadian Dental Care Plan. Families with a combined income of less than $70,000 receive 100 per cent coverage.
“Additionally, all reasonable efforts are taken to work with families who don’t qualify for this plan but who are unable to pay the non-insured portion of procedures all at once. This includes providing the option of a no-interest monthly payment plan.”
carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca
Carol Sanders
Legislature reporter
Carol Sanders is a reporter at the Free Press legislature bureau. The former general assignment reporter and copy editor joined the paper in 1997. Read more about Carol.
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