Glasgow 2014 Having worked for NHS GGC for nearly
30 years, Elaine, who is currently employed as a dental nurse manager in the public dental service, provided vital support for Tom and the organisers. The dental clinic consisted of a consulting room for triaging patients and a one-chair surgery. Tom explained: “We had two clinical teams every session because we just didn’t know how busy it was going to be. One clinical team would take patients away and do the triage and a quick check-up in a consulting room. They would make sure they were a genuine case for treatment and then they would be handed over to the clinical team in the surgery. “The team that were in the surgery were
only doing work that could only be carried out in a surgery and it worked out well.” Elaine said: “In terms of the calculations
of equipment it proved to be quite difficult because there were no projected figures of how many patients we would be seeing given to us from previous games. “However, my background is in
Glasgow’s out of hours service, so I sat down with Tom and the managers and projected as if it were a busy out of hours service. So we based it on figures taken from that and our calculations were pretty spot on from a stock point of view. We ordered in the necessary stock on a sale or return basis for the stock that wasn’t used.” The clinic used The Dental Directory
for materials and consumables because the company has the NHS national contract for the Public Dental Service. The firm
also provided the clinical tops for all the staff to wear in the surgery. The labwork was carried out by DTS International, whose managing director Sandy Littlejohn provided free mouthguards to any athletes needing them throughout the games. “He had no idea what sort of hit he was going to take on that so it was a great gesture,” said Tom. Looking back after the event, Elaine said
that the success was down in large part to the volunteers. She said: “As far as I was concerned it couldn’t have gone any better. The staff were phenomenal, my job was made so much easier by the staff being so motivated and enthusiastic. They were all really professional, they all mucked in and
it was just a really good team spirit.” And, despite a few logistical problems
regarding accreditation for lab deliveries and decontamination equipment runs, the dental clinic was seen as a massive success. “The volunteers are the people who will just make it work and I take my hat off to them,” said Tom. “They hadn’t a clue what was coming in
to them. Even the polyclinic guys, they would see the trauma from the rugby sevens the next day and they would have to clean it up and re-splint it properly if the splint that had been done pitchside had to be replaced. They didn’t know what was coming in next, but they took to it like ducks to water.”
Hollie goes the extra 400 miles
Dental nurse from Suffolk travelled up to volunteer at Glasgow 2014 after catching the bug during the London Olympics in 2012
H
ollie Limmer could have a strong case for being one of the most travelled members of the dental team, having made the
journey up from Lowestoft in Suffolk, a distance of more than 400 miles. A dental nurse for the last 12 years, Hollie is also a keen hockey player and she jumped at the chance to volunteer in 2012 when the Olympics came to London. Spurred on by that experience, she put in her application for Glasgow as soon as she could.
She said: “After the Olympics, which was such an amazing experience, I thought that I now had the experience and confidence to take it forward and
do it again. So that’s why I applied for Glasgow.”
Based in the polyclinic, Hollie explained that they saw a diverse range of injuries and ailments. “We saw a variety of things, everything from wisdom tooth pain and general tooth aches, through to full sports trauma with teeth being knocked out and facial injuries due to hockey, boxing, judo and rugby.
“It was nice to do some proper sports trauma work because, being in an NHS practice, I don’t see a lot of that sort of thing. It is usually just children with knocks to the face in the playground, that kind of thing. So this was quite inter- esting to see, full scale sports trauma.” Hollie said that the biggest challenge
was simply having the guts to go for it in the first place. She said: “It is all too easy to work within your confines or your comfort zone. I think the challenge was that every day you go in and you don’t know what to expect, who you are going to work with, what kind of things are going to come through the door. “But equally, that’s the reward, because every day is so different. “You do it
because you have such a good time.”
Scottish Dental magazine 33
Tom (centre) and Elaine (second from right) with colleagues outside the polyclinic
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