Written by Zareen Ashraff on 27-Feb-2013
Cheryl McBroom our hygienist at Strensall reports on her latest dental charity trip.
Last November myself and eight other dental professionals went on a trip with Dentaid to Cambodia in South East Asia. Dentaid is one of the leading oral health charities in the world having supported 260 oral health programmes in 60 countries.
On this trip Dentaid were working alongside a Cambodian charity called One-2-One. The project we were working on was called Cambodian Tooth Angel Project which treats vulnerable and destitute people including orphans, children and adolescents living on the streets, people with HIV, slum dwellers and prisoners.
Our first day of work was at a local school in Phnom Penh, the capitol of Cambodia. Here we treated over 70 primary school children, many of whom suffered extensively from tooth decay. We managed to fissure seal the teeth that were healthy, hopefully preventing more decay problems. Conditions were very basic and the children lay on wooden benches while we carried out the treatment. They were excellent patients and they were each rewarded with a sticker.
The next morning we travelled to Takeo to work at a prison which had over 300 hundred prisoners including staff. As we entered the prison the big wooden door was unlocked and we walked through. The first thing I remember was the overpowering foul smell. Many prisoners were standing around in groups, wearing royal blue shirts and trousers. Most appeared quite young and undernourished. It was hot and humid, flies were buzzing round, chickens walking about in our work area, and a dog roamed around the prison all day. Over the next five days this was to be our place of work.
The prisoners had generally poor dental health and many needed teeth to be extracted and fillings to be done. My job was twofold, consisting of scaling the prisoners’ teeth most of whom had never had this done before. I was also charged with the cross infection control, cleaning and sterilising all the dirty instruments. It was hard work, the electricity was intermittent and we were under pressure to get as many prisoners out of pain as possible. In total around 250 were seen, including prisoner officers. 228 teeth were extracted, 223 fillings and 65 scales.
From here we travelled north to Siem Reap a tourist area, here we worked in an orphanage and treated all ages of children. We did fillings, extractions and more dental health education. Having showed all the children how to brush their teeth, we left them with toothpaste and toothbrushes and stickers.
It was an enjoyable and rewarding trip , hard work but worth all the mosquito bites!
