Charity
and I realised the magnitude of the task in hand. When we arrived, we
provided much-needed dental aid within the camps and in the surrounding districts. This included emergency treatment to alleviate acute pain, dental education for the kids in the camps through the distribution of toothbrushes/ toothpaste and providing basic dental education as well as the distribution of powdered milk for newborn babies and baby clothes. My father, working alongside
other organisations, provided paediatric medical assistance by helping to build and equip the only purpose-build paedi- atric clinic in the camps to serve the local community. They also trained the local doctors and nurses with refresher courses as well as training staff on how to use the equipment provided. The clinic was a far cry
from what I was used to at my associate practice. For a start,
the dental clinic was thinly kitted out and the materials on offer were ones I hadn’t encountered before. There was a basic form of decontamina- tion, limited instruments and the biggest obstacle was the lack of nurses – so there was no one to support me while I was examining and treating patients. I hadn’t mixed or prepared any dental materials
Most of the adult patients were suffering from chronic adult periodontitis and most hadn’t seen a dentist for more than two years. Clearly, with the stresses and poor nutrition they had endured, their dental needs were not their highest priority. Dealing with patient expec-
tations was quite tricky and was the most challenging
“The majority of patients I saw were suffering from toothache as a result of gross caries”
since I was at university, so treatment took longer than it would normally do. Most patients I saw were
suffering from toothache as a result of gross caries or secondary caries to large resto- rations. The caries rate was high and oral hygiene poor.
aspect of my short stay. Most of the patients who had suffered from irreversible pulpitis were very keen on preserving the tooth and would ask for root treatment rather than extrac- tion. This made a lot of sense from the patient’s perspective as they know its going to be
difficult to replace the missing tooth and a short-term solu- tion for them seemed the best option. However, this placed a
huge burden on the clinic for many reasons, most notably there wasn’t the material to continue the root treatment, and secondly, the patient would need more than one appoint- ment, therefore potentially depriving someone with real toothache from accessing treatment. This would be unaf- fordable, long-term, and the cost to the clinic would spiral and therefore endanger the core dental service in the area. Other than pain patients, I
commonly examined patients who had commenced treat- ment in Syria and wanted the treatment to be completed. This comprised mostly fixed prosthodontic cases, but, unfortunately, there was very little we could do for these
Continued » Scottish Dental magazine 27
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