| Give a Smile™ keeps on giving |
 From Darwin to Mildura to Bowen and Fremantle Give a Smile™ is putting smiles on faces around Australia. This year and every year, over 200 young Australians will have larger-than-life grins thanks to the generosity and expertise of participating Give a Smile™ orthodontists. Around 2000 patients start their orthodontic treatment each year through Australia’s public dental health services. Thanks to Give a Smile™, public waiting lists have been reduced by an extraordinary 10%. That’s a saving of more than $1 million per year to taxpayers! Give a Smile™ was launched in June 2005 by the Australian Society of Orthodontists (ASO) as a national philanthropic health initiative. Give a Smile™ provides pro bono orthodontic treatment to patients currently on the public dental health waiting list. Each full course of treatment provided by the orthodontist takes approximately two years to complete and would typically cost around $5-7,000. The orthodontist charges no fee for this treatment. The Give a Smile™ program, conceptualised by immediate past ASO President Dr. Ted Crawford, has proven so successful that already 56% or 222 of the ASO’s 400 full members have signed up to donate their time and expertise. Dr Crawford said he was thrilled with the overwhelming support received for the program by his fellow orthodontists and is proud of what the program has already achieved. “The goal of Give a Smile™ is simple and heartfelt; it’s to ‘give a smile’ both figuratively and literally to people in our community who face financial difficulties as well as having significant orthodontic needs”. |
