Auburn Memorial Hospital sees a little under 100 children with impacted teeth in its emergency room, a result of no access to preventive dental care, said Jim Kennedy, the executive director of the Cayuga Community Health Network.

“Many of these issues find their roots, no pun intended, in the lack of health care,” Kennedy said.

The emergency room trips are only one example of problems of dental health access in the county, said Kathleen Cuddy, deputy director for the Cayuga County Health Department's Health Services division.

A survey of Cayuga County nurses found approximately 25 percent of their time is spent dealing with poor dental care, according to the 2005 Community Health Assessment completed by the county Health Department. Poor dental health is the most common chronic disease in children. It can impact their overall health, growth, oral function, etc. Dental pain impedes school performance, sleep, attention and social skill development.

In 2004, it was estimated that 25 to 30 percent of local children had no regular dental care, according to the assessment.

Cuddy finds that area dentists accommodate their current patients who lose insurance or have to move to Medicaid coverage, but there are few in-county locations for new Medicaid or uninsured patients besides Auburn's East Hill Family Medical Inc. and a Port Byron dentist. Family Health Plus provides no coverage of dental care, or mental health or ophthalmology.

Cuddy and Kennedy think the fluoridation of the county's water might be one way to help county residents' dental health, but the shortage of dentists - particularly in the Moravia-Locke area, which is part of a federal designated dentist shortage - in the county isn't likely to change soon.

The ration of dentists to the state's population is good in comparison to the rest of the country, said Bridget Walsh, a senior policy associate with the Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy, a not-for-profit working improve health and human services for state residents, but dentists are concentrated in New York City, Long Island and the Westchester area.

A total of 320 new dentists are needed in the state to meet the demand, Walsh said, but there is no guarantee the state will secure that many.