Supporting Charities

Smile Solutions supports a number of charitable organisations through donations, sponsorships and event support. The organisations are named below, together with something more useful than a logo: the actual link between each cause and oral health, which in several cases is direct, clinically significant, and almost never discussed.

The organisations supported

Bellevue Philanthropy

Bellevue Philanthropy was founded by Silla and Jody Allat to raise funds for organisations they have a personal connection to. Its events have supported:

• PANDA — Perinatal Anxiety & Depression Australia. The inaugural Winter Solstice Ladies Luncheon was held in 2011 in support of PANDA and became an annual event.
• Monash Children's Hospital — supported through an annual Oaks Day luncheon. Monash Children's is described by the organisers as Victoria's second-largest and Australia's third-largest children's hospital.
• FareShare — supported through the Bayside Local Food Festival, run with Amalocal. FareShare cooks meals from rescued food for people experiencing food insecurity.

SIDS and Kids Victoria (now Red Nose)

Smile Solutions supported Red Nose Day, including the 25th Red Nose Day in June 2012, donating an auction item and displaying Red Nose signage in the practice's Collins Street windows.

Note for accuracy: SIDS and Kids has since been renamed Red Nose, and Red Nose Day is now generally held in August. The organisation provides bereavement support to families after the sudden and unexpected death of a baby or child, and promotes safe sleeping practices.

Clown Doctors

Founded in 1996, Clown Doctors work in major children's hospitals across Australia, conducting rounds through wards including intensive care and oncology.

Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation (OCRF)

We have supported the OCRF Silver Ribbon Exposure Gala over a number of years. The OCRF was co-founded in 2000 by gynaecologist Associate Professor Tom Jobling and Ms Liz Heliotis.

Magpie Nest Housing Project

A joint initiative of the Collingwood Football Club Foundation and The Salvation Army, in partnership with the Victorian Government's Homelessness Innovation Action Plan, providing housing with wrap-around case management and links to mental health services, employment and training. The practice states it has donated more than $250,000 to the project since 2014.

National Breast Cancer Foundation (NBCF)

We support the NBCF's annual Pink Ribbon Breakfast in Melbourne. The NBCF was established in 1994 and funds Australian breast cancer research exclusively.

The part nobody writes down: what each cause has to do with teeth

This is where a charity page can earn its place.

Cancer treatment and the mouth — OCRF and NBCF

The oral consequences of cancer treatment are substantial, predictable, and routinely under-managed.

• Chemotherapy causes oral mucositis in a large proportion of patients — painful ulceration of the mouth lining that can be severe enough to interrupt the cancer treatment itself.
• Chemotherapy suppresses the immune system. An infected tooth that would be a nuisance in a healthy person can become a medical emergency in a neutropenic one. This is why a dental review before starting treatment matters, and why oncology units ask for one.
• Dry mouth is near-universal, from the treatment and from anti-nausea medications. A dry mouth loses its main defence against decay, and rampant decay in someone with no previous history is a recognised pattern.
• Some cancer treatments include antiresorptive medications for bone protection — bisphosphonates and denosumab. These change how the jaw heals after extractions, which is why the dental work is best done before the medication starts, not after.
• Radiotherapy to the head and neck — not typical in these cancers, but relevant in the general case — permanently alters salivary function and jaw healing.

The practical point for any patient facing cancer treatment: get a dental examination before treatment begins, and tell your dentist exactly what you are being treated with.

Related reading: Oral cancer: signs, risk factors and how your dentist can help, What is mouth cancer?, and the full library at Dental Articles.

Homelessness and oral health — Magpie Nest

Dental disease is one of the most visible markers of long-term disadvantage, and one of the most disabling.

Public dental waiting lists in Victoria run to years for general care. In the meantime, pain is managed with emergency extraction, which is why the pattern in people who have experienced long-term homelessness is missing teeth rather than restored ones. Missing front teeth affect employability directly, which turns a health problem into a housing and income problem — and back again.

Housing first, then health, is not just a slogan: stable accommodation is close to a precondition for completing a course of dental treatment at all.

Perinatal mental health — PANDA

The overlap here is real. Pregnancy and the first year after birth are when dental care is most often deferred and most often needed.

• Pregnancy gingivitis affects a large share of pregnant women, driven by hormonal change.
• Vomiting — from morning sickness or hyperemesis — exposes teeth to stomach acid. Do not brush immediately afterwards; rinse with water or a fluoride mouthrinse and brush later. Brushing acid-softened enamel removes it.
• Dental treatment during pregnancy is safe and is not deferred as a matter of routine. The second trimester is generally most comfortable. Local anaesthetic is safe; radiographs with a lead apron and thyroid collar are safe when justified.
• Depression and anxiety reduce self-care, and several antidepressants cause dry mouth. The combination raises decay risk substantially, and it is rarely mentioned to the patient.

PANDA's national helpline is 1300 726 306. See also Pregnancy changes your mouth and Is it safe to visit the dentist during pregnancy?.

Children in hospital — Clown Doctors and Monash Children's

Dental fear is largely learned in childhood, and much of it is iatrogenic — created by a bad first experience.

What Clown Doctors do addresses the same underlying problem dentistry has with children: a frightened child cannot be treated well, and forcing the issue teaches them to avoid care for decades. The evidence-based responses are the unglamorous ones — short early visits with nothing done, familiar surroundings, honest language, and never using the dentist as a threat at home.

Tooth decay remains one of the leading causes of preventable hospital admission for Australian children, because treating an anxious young child with extensive decay often requires a general anaesthetic. See Children’s Dentistry and Dental Anxiety.

Food insecurity — FareShare

Diet is the single largest modifiable determinant of tooth decay, and it is a poverty problem before it is a behaviour problem.

The frequency of sugar exposure matters more than the total quantity. Every exposure drops the pH and starts a demineralisation period; the mouth needs time to recover. Cheap, shelf-stable, energy-dense food tends to be both high in fermentable carbohydrate and frequently eaten — which is the worst combination for teeth. Telling someone with no food security to change their diet is not advice; it is a description of their problem.

Why no thank-you letters are reproduced here

The practice has received written acknowledgements from partner organisations. They are not reproduced on this site.

Advertising by registered health practitioners is regulated under section 133 of the National Law, which prohibits the use of testimonials in advertising a regulated health service. The safest reading of that rule — and the one applied across this site — is not to publish third-party endorsements at all, even ones that concern charitable support rather than clinical care. Reviews sets out the rule in full.

Two further points, stated deliberately:

• Charitable support is not a claim about clinical quality. It says something about the business; it says nothing about the dentistry. Anyone choosing a dentist should verify registration at ahpra.gov.au and read Why Choose Us and Price Guide instead.
• No donation, sponsorship or charitable association is offered as an inducement to use a health service, and none is tied to any patient's treatment or fee.

Common questions

Is dental disease really a hospital problem, or is that an exaggeration?

It is a hospital problem, and the scale is published.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare counts what it calls potentially preventable hospitalisations — "hospital stays for dental conditions considered avoidable with timely non-hospital care". In 2023–24 there were about 88,600 such admissions in Australia, a rate of roughly 3 in every 1,000 people, up from a low of 2.6 per 1,000 in 2019–20.

To put that in the context of hospital admissions generally: a 2023 systematic review in Dentistry Journal states that "dental infection is the leading dental-related cause of potentially preventable hospitalisations in Australia", and that dental-related hospitalisations "account for 10% of total PPH and 22% of PPH due to acute conditions".

Two honest limits on those numbers. The AIHW figure counts all potentially preventable dental hospitalisations, not only infections — decay, impacted teeth and infection are not separated in the published chart descriptions. And the breakdowns by age, cause, state and remoteness exist only inside AIHW's downloadable data tables, so no figure specific to children, or to any one cause, is quoted here from that source.

What the total does support is the point this page is making about disadvantage: these are admissions for conditions that ordinary, timely, out-of-hospital dental care would have prevented, and the people who do not get that care are disproportionately the people the organisations above exist to help.

How much sugar is actually too much, and does it matter when I eat it?

Both the amount and the pattern count, and the authoritative sources put it more carefully than most diet advice does.

On amount, the World Health Organization "strongly recommends reducing the intake of free sugars to less than 10% of total energy intake" in adults and children, and suggests a further reduction to below 5% to decrease the risk of tooth decay further. Free sugars means all sugars added by a manufacturer, cook or consumer, plus sugars naturally present in honey, syrups, fruit juices and fruit juice concentrates — so a glass of juice counts and a piece of fruit does not.

On pattern, the Australian Dental Association's position is that "the form, frequency, timing and total amount of sugar intake are significant in the initiation of the caries process", with special emphasis on "snacking on sugary-beverages and/or sugar-rich foods that have limited nutritional value". The mechanism it describes is that fermentable carbohydrate causes the pH of dental plaque to fall below a critical level, softening tooth structure, which over time becomes decay.

So the practical version is not "sugar bad" but "fewer separate occasions, and less overall". A can of soft drink with a meal is a different exposure from the same can sipped across an afternoon. The WHO also notes the other two halves of the picture: inadequate exposure to fluoride and failure to remove plaque by brushing with a fluoride toothpaste containing 1000 to 1500 ppm are named alongside sugar as what leads to decay.

Does fluoridated water actually make a difference, and who benefits most?

Yes, and the answer to the second half is the reason it appears on a charity page.

The National Health and Medical Research Council's 2017 Public Statement recommends community water fluoridation as "a safe, effective and ethical way to help reduce tooth decay", and supports states and territories fluoridating within the range of 0.6 to 1.1 milligrams of fluoride per litre. The effect size NHMRC reports is a reduction in tooth decay of 26% to 44% in children and adolescents, and about 27% in adults, with recent Australian research suggesting that access to fluoridated water from an early age is associated with less decay in adulthood.

The distributional point is NHMRC's own: fluoridation "particularly benefits children, and those on a lower income who tend to have higher rates of tooth decay and less access to dental treatment". It is one of the very few oral-health measures that works without requiring anybody to attend an appointment, buy anything or change a habit — which is exactly why it matters most to the people least able to do those things.

NHMRC is equally clear that it is not a substitute for the rest: it describes fluoridation as effective "along with a combination of healthy diet, good oral hygiene, appropriate use of fluoridated toothpaste and regular dental check-ups".

If treatment is unaffordable, is there anything useful to know?

Cost is the most-documented barrier, and knowing how the system is put together at least tells you what to ask.

A submission to a Parliament of Australia inquiry into out-of-pocket costs cites an AIHW 2013 survey finding that nearly a third of people aged 5 or older (32%) avoided or delayed visiting a dentist due to cost. The same submission records that there is no national dental fee schedule in Australia — fees are set practice by practice, which is why quotes differ and why comparing them is worth the effort.

It also notes a geographic pattern worth knowing: insurer-owned dental clinics offering no-gap fees, and preferred providers offering smaller gaps, cluster in major cities, so out-of-pocket expenses for rural and regional patients are likely to be greater. Living near this practice, or any city practice, is itself a form of advantage.

Three things that follow practically. Ask for an itemised written quote with item numbers, because that is what lets you price the same treatment elsewhere and check it against your fund. Ask what the treatment would cost staged over time, since not everything has to be done at once and a clinician can usually tell you what is urgent and what can wait. And if you are eligible for public dental care or for a scheme such as the Child Dental Benefit Schedule, check rather than assume — under-claiming is common. Price Guide and Payment Plans set out what is published here.

Related pages: Our Awards, Why Choose Us, Reviews, Children’s Dentistry, Dental Articles.

Practical details

Smile Solutions, Level 1, 220 Collins Street, Manchester Unity Building, Melbourne VIC 3000. Phone 13 13 96, or theteam@smilesolutions.com.au. Monday–Friday 8.00am–6.00pm, Saturday 8.30am–1.30pm, Sunday by appointment.

This page contains general information, not clinical advice. Details of charitable partnerships, event dates and organisation names reflect the record at the time of writing and change over time; confirm current details with the organisations themselves. Anyone undergoing or about to begin cancer treatment should discuss dental care with their treating oncology team and their dentist.

Smile Solutions trades under ABN 28 193 514 103.