Ann Westmore: Can you explain what occurred?

Owen Crombie: In private practice, you’d be approached several times a month by people asking for all their teeth to be removed. You’d question them about why on earth they wanted that, given that they only had a few bad teeth and the rest were reasonable and salvageable.

They’d tell you that they had had a toothache for a couple of months and had gone along to a mechanic, as dental technicians were known in those days, and the mechanic had made them a set of dentures. They needed the teeth removed so that they could use the dentures.

Now, it was illegal for the dental technicians to deal directly with the public, but nevertheless they mounted a campaign in which they argued that dentists were ripping the public off, overlooking the fact that, firstly, they were making these dentures illegally, and that secondly they often weren’t paying any tax on the income they received.

The head of the technician’s association happened to be married to a journalist who had political connections and the campaign was all about how the working man was being ripped off by the vile dentists who charged twice as much as technicians for dentures.

Ultimately the technicians were allowed to practise chair-side, but many soon found out this had drawbacks as they could be sued if their work wasn’t up to standard and people wouldn’t pay for work that technicians previously blamed dentists for.

Ann Westmore: I take it the relationship between the dentists and the dental technicians wasn’t in good shape at this time?

Owen Crombie: As a dentist in private practice, my relationship with the technicians I used was good, and still is. The real argument was that sometimes patients had a problem far worse – for example, a cancer – and the technician decided that a new set of dentures would fix it. And this could have terrible health ramifications, and even death.

Henry Atkinson: Could I add a few words as I was in the thick of this. This battle had been going on for a long time, as far back as Dr Tuckfield. It came to the point where the Government decided it must do something. The Dental Association had many delegations to the Health Minister, Mr Rossiter.

I could feel that the Association was going to lose, and I suggested that the profession could possibly salvage something if we were in a position to examine the patient’s mouth, write the prescription for the denture and then the technician filled the prescription. The representative of the technicians didn’t accept this proposal, nor did the Association or the Government. Then a Committee was established, chaired by Sir Benjamin Rank,[74] and of which I was a member. I think we were about evenly divided between dentists and technicians. But, of course, we couldn’t agree.

In the end Sir Benjamin took the matter to the Government and our final agreement was that technicians who had been practising illegally could present for an examination and could gain registration if they passed. The alternative was that technicians who had been practising for five years could be registered without an examination. I was dead against that, and so was Sir Benjamin. In the end, we had an examination for the technicians and we passed about a third of the candidates who were registered.

John Rasmussen: A number of dentists altruistically undertook to teach the technicians [who gained registration] in the belief that there would be less damage to the general public.

Henry Atkinson: That was the choice we had to make.

Ann Westmore: Have relations between dentists and dental technicians improved, or is there still friction?

John Harcourt: No [the friction has disappeared], because they are a legal entity.

Gerry Dalitz: One of the issues that came up was that, because the ones who were registered to deal directly with the public were a level above the other dental technicians, a ‘war’ developed between the two lots of technicians instead of between dentists and dental technicians.

Owen Crombie: Once the technicians were legally allowed to deal directly with the public, their cost base suddenly underwent a radical change. They were charging just as much for a denture direct to the public as the dentist was. And a number of technicians who initially thought it would be wonderful to be registered as advanced dental technicians, as they were called at the time, found after about six months that they were now exposed to people coming back time and again because the denture needed easing.

Another issue that made the whole thing very difficult is that whilst there are a small number of dentists around who reckon that providing a fine set of dentures is a wonderful thing to do, the other 99% of the dental population think if they never have to make another denture, it will be too soon.

From my own observation of younger colleagues, the situation has, if anything, got worse. There is less and less emphasis on removable prosthetics as part of the dental course, either theoretical or particularly practical. Hence, there’s a decreasing base of dentists who can make a decent denture anyhow.

Witness to the History of Australian Medicine