Hermes

It is pretty obvious to me that the poor state of dental health in the Island is due to inadequate access to dental services, coupled with poor diet and compounded by a singularly lacking drive to promote dental heatlh education from schools upwards. Our shops are saturated with increasing amounts of acidic and sugary foods and our diets are including more and more of these. I am sure that more people are attending their doctors and the A&E department every day because they are desperate and cannot get easy access to a dentist, and I am fairly certain this is worse than in the UK. The Islands' dentists seem to make more money from cosmetic dentistry than conservative treatments and many are selling us out for this industry. Compulsory medication of the water supply with fluoride is NOT the answer to our crisis. The real inequality is between our NHS provsion for general health and that for dental health. I am a bit suspicious that it appears that this whole thread has been set up by people who are pushing the government line.

The Isle of Man 'homeless' are homeless for the following reasons: 1. Their family/friends are not prepared to put up with their drink/drug behaviour. 2. They often do not want to interact with the help offered to them under anything but their own terms. 3. Many of them persistently abuse, assault, intimidate and freeload off of those working for the health and social services who are there to help them. 4. A small minority can't help themselves due to real mental illness. They obviously need help. Those who get homed are the decent people who really want a break and are willing to behave in a civil manner.