By Joy Salami
The Federal Teaching Hospital Lokoja (FTHL), joined health institutions across the world on Friday to mark the 2025 World Oral Health Day, using the occasion to call on Nigerians to make dental check-ups a routine part of their healthcare and not a last resort.
Although the day falls on 20th March every year, this year’s observance was moved to Friday, 27th March, after the date coincided with a public holiday.
Activities centred on the 2025 theme, “A Healthy Mouth is a Happy Life,” with public sensitisation and outreach forming the core of the day’s programme.
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Speaking on the sidelines of the event, Obochi Ifeyinwa, the principal dental therapist with the hospital’s dental department, said the theme captures a reality many Nigerians have experienced but seldom link to oral health.
According to her, If your mouth is not healthy, you will not live a happy life. Many people with dental problems have been stigmatised. They develop a phobia about speaking in public, some even cover their mouths when they talk. But when your mouth is healthy, you can speak anywhere, freely.
She noted that the mouth is often the first site where underlying systemic diseases manifest, making oral health a window into the body’s overall condition. “Some diseases appear in the mouth first. That is why you have to take your dental health seriously,” she said.
The message appeared to resonate with several members of the public who attended the outreach. A number of them expressed surprise upon learning that routine scaling and polishing, rather than extraction, was what their dental visits should primarily involve. Some disclosed that they had been enduring tooth sensitivity and mild pain for months, having assumed that a visit to the dentist would automatically result in a tooth being pulled out.
A central message from the hospital’s dental team was the need for regular scaling and polishing, a professional cleaning procedure recommended at least once or twice a year. Ifeyinwa said that most patients only visit the dental clinic when pain becomes unbearable, by which point tooth extraction often becomes unavoidable.
She explained that Many people only know one thing: that if they have a tooth ache they should go to the dentist and ask for the tooth to be removed. But if they had come earlier for scaling and polishing, that would not have been necessary. Routine cleaning keeps your remaining teeth healthy and prevents you from ever needing an extraction.
The therapist also drew attention to a common but dangerous habit: patients who manage cavities at home rather than seeking professional treatment. She warned that ignoring a hole in a tooth allows decay to reach the pulp, the living tissue at the tooth’s core, at which point extraction becomes the only option.
In her words, “when the pulp is affected, there are no two ways about it, the person will lose that tooth. We do not believe in losing teeth. We believe in prevention. Come, let us help you prevent losing your teeth.”
For some attendees, the outreach came as a turning point. Several people who had been living with tooth gaps resulting from past accidents said they were unaware that the hospital offered dentures, and expressed relief at the prospect of restoring their smiles. Others who had long avoided social interactions due to discomfort about their teeth said the event gave them the confidence to seek treatment they had previously delayed.
Beyond extraction, Ifeyinwa highlighted several treatments available at FTHL’s dental department that many members of the public are unaware of, including tooth restoration, the filling of cavities and dentures, which are artificial teeth fitted for patients who have lost one or more teeth due to accidents or disease.
When you come to the dental clinic, you will be educated on the categories of dentures and all the other options available to you, she said.
Ifeyinwa called on Nigerians to stop associating the dental clinic exclusively with tooth removal and to take advantage of the full range of preventive and restorative services on offer.
Participants at the event also praised the hospital’s decision to bring the sensitisation outside the clinic walls. Many said they had visited FTHL for other health concerns but had never set foot in the dental department, largely because they did not know what services were offered there. The outreach, they noted, had demystified dentistry and made the prospect of a dental visit feel far less intimidating.
World Oral Health Day is observed annually on 20th March, under the auspices of the FDI World Dental Federation, which coordinates awareness activities in countries around the world.
