Our two speakers today were James Goodlad and Tracy Davies, a dentist and a dental nurse who volunteer for the charity Bridge2Aid.
Bridge2Aid provides training in emergency dental treatment to Clinical Officers in Tanzania, a country in which there is only one fully-qualified dentist for every 300,000 people. Clinical Officers are responsible for the basic medical care of around 10,000 people each but do not receive training in dental techniques.
Bridge2Aid normally send out teams of twelve, consisting of dentists, dental hygienists and dental nurses. The teams also take with them boxes of basic dental equipment which are presented to the local trainees on successful completion of the two-week training programme. In the 15 years of its existence, Bridge2Aid has trained 556 Clinical Officers in basic dental techniques. Most of them had never picked up a dental instrument before the training programme.
It is only basic dental treatment that the Clinical Officers are trained to provide. These include extraction and the safe administration of anaesthetic. The volunteer dental teams are able to provide much more sophisticated treatment, although the facilities available to them are obviously fairly limited.
James and Tracy had a slideshow running during their talks. This displayed photographs taken during a recent visit they had made to Tanzania as part of a Bridge2Aid team. In addition to the trainees, some 140 people turned up for treatment. These included some who had suffered dental problems for many years, including one lady who had been unable to eat anything but “porridge” (probably maize meal) for twenty years. There were some “before and after” photographs, showing what a difference dental treatment made.