The outgoing National President of the Nigerian Dental Association (NDA), Dr Tope Adeyemi, says offering dental treatments, especially teeth whitening, scaling and polishing, in beauty parlours is illegal.
He also warned that persons undergoing teeth whitening procedures at salons and beauty parlours were at risk of having a sensitive tooth and possibly death.
A sensitive tooth happens when the dentin is exposed, causing discomfort whenever hot, cold, sweet or acidic foods and drinks are consumed.
Furthermore, the NDA president asserted that most beauticians who carried out the services were not dentists and were not licensed to offer such services.
Adeyemi further decried the lack of cooperation with law enforcement agents to arrest and close down the saloons and parlours offering dental services illegally, stating that reported cases often resulted in no meaningful action.
The outgoing president called on law enforcement agencies to collaborate with the association to ensure the closure of illegal clinics for the safety and health of the citizenry.
PUNCH Healthwise reports that there has been a proliferation of beauty parlours and salons offering dental services, such as teeth whitening and scaling and polishing, alongside facial treatments, hairstyling, nail and spa services.
Further checks of some physical shops revealed that there were no separate rooms designated for the dental procedures.
Also, the procedure was done by attendants who did not wear the required protective covering, such as face masks or gloves.
Teeth whitening, according to the National Health Service, United Kingdom, is a form of dentistry that should “only be carried out by a dentist or another regulated dental professional, such as a dental hygienist or dental therapist, on the prescription of a dentist”.
WebMD notes that teeth whitening is a procedure to lighten the colour of the teeth and remove stains.
The methods, according to another health blog, Healthline, include sanding down stains, using bleach or ultraviolet light therapy.
Moreover, the active ingredient in the whitening product is hydrogen peroxide or carbamide peroxide.
The Public Health section of the European Commission notes that 62 per cent of persons who used teeth whitening products containing hydrogen peroxide, complained of hypersensitivity (sensitive tooth), while 45.9 per cent reported soft-tissue irritation.
According to the World Health Organisation, oral diseases affect about 3.5 billion people globally with far-reaching consequences.
It adds that while oral diseases are preventable, they pose a major health burden in many countries and affect people throughout their lifetime, causing pain, discomfort, disfigurement and even death.
Continuing, the outgoing NDA president said, “Persons doing those procedures at beauty salons, more often than not are not dentists. The general public is usually deceived into accessing those services in those places but ideally, they shouldn’t and it’s not permissible.
“To carry out dental procedures in a beauty shop is very illegal. Treatment or handling of human tissue, which the mouth is part of, is to be done by trained professionals, and dentists. So if these beauticians are doing it, it is illegal and is not permitted”.
He further noted that several efforts by the association to curb the illegal practice yielded no result.
“So in the past and recently, we’ve had the police arrest a number of them but you know how Nigeria is. After their arrest, they get money and bail themselves out. Like a vicious cycle, they are arrested, bail themselves out and continue through their services. That’s the situation we are in”, Adeyemi said.
The dentist further noted that some persons exposed to the bleaching gels used in the teeth whitening procedures were at risk of tooth sensitivity.
He added, “Some come down with burning of the gum because all the necessary precautions that need to be taken, those people who are non-licensed don’t know it, and so it causes more complications to those individuals”.
The NDA president condemned the activities of unlicensed beauty parlours and clinics offering dental services without a licensed dentist.
He asserted that clinics and salons that wanted to perform oral and dental services without a dentist should not be registered or licensed to practice.
Adeyemi, however, said, “But what we found out was that in some states, they bypass the process and go and register. In other states, they somehow find the license of a doctor and use it to register the facility. So in the records of the state, you can check the owner of the clinic and it would show a doctor meanwhile it’s just the license of the doctor that was obtained, whether legally or illegally, by those quacks who continue to wreak havoc on the people”.
He advised Nigerians against seeking dental procedures in a beautician shop, stating that beauticians were not trained to handle emergencies that could arise.
“If there is an emergency that requires serious management, that beautician who is not trained to handle emergencies will not be able to handle it. An emergency is an emergency, it can lead to death.
“Imagine that the procedure is being done on someone who has asthma, for example, and the person goes into an asthmatic attack. What does a beautician know about the management of asthma? Before the person will even understand what is happening to the person he is attending to, the person probably will die.
“So there are lots of other complications or other confounding factors that the beautician is not trained to be able to identify or treat if they come up. All they are interested in is the quick money they want to collect from the individual.
“So they are not, by law, permitted to treat, because it is a form of treatment. Scaling and polishing and teeth whitening are treatments and they are not permitted to treat anybody if they don’t have the training as a dentist”, Adeyemi said.
He called on law enforcement agents to work with the NDA to ensure that illegal clinics were closed for the good of the citizens.
