Dental Tribune United Kingdom Edition

March 14-20, 201112 Feature United Kingdom Edition T eam Tangawizi - nearly 2,000 patients in 10 days This team consisted of four dentists, two dental thera- pists, a hygienist and a dental nurse from across the UK. The leader, retired hygienist Barbara Koffman, has run these clinics for a number of years, but this is the first time the clinics have been near Mbale and Kumi. Three local Ugandan dentists joined the team to help out, and also to increase their knowledge and skills. Death With the limited dental and medical facilities in this region people still die from complica- tions of untreated dental ab- scesses. People are known to put up with toothache for months be- fore seeking treatment. And when treatment is available it often in- volves walking great distances to reach it. One seven-year-old girl and her grandmother walked more than 30 miles to see us to get a huge dental infection treated. The equipment comprised folding dental chairs (built by Dentaid specifically for these clinics), basic hand instruments, and disposables donated in the UK and carried to the country by the volunteers. Translators helped with everything from crowd control to holding torches, patient in- struction, and tablet counting, and many became very handy dental assistants too! Each dis- trict has a different dialect, so we had to quickly learn to say words such as “hello”, “pain”, “open”, “close” and “bite” in a variety of languages, or at least that’s what we think we were saying. Our efforts certainly amused the patients. Queue Upon arrival each day we would find a queue of patients wait- ing, and assessments would start straight away, whilst the chairs and instruments were set My Uganda dental mission Heidi Robinson writes about how she spent two weeks as part of a dental team providing free pain relief clinics and dental health education in rural Uganda