Three Polish dentists are getting ready to go to Cameroon. They will take care of dental assistance there as part of the project “Dentist in Africa. Dentists are volunteers and do their work free of charge. They will take all the necessary equipment and medicines with them.
They will leave for Africa at the end of September. Their mission will last three months, with another dentist coming to replace them at the beginning of the new year.
“Working in the tropics is extremely difficult, not only because of the prevailing temperatures, but also the need to cope with the constant power shortage and the need for equipment maintenance. In addition to working in the office at the mission in Abong Mbang, doctors also plan to work as part of an outpatient clinic to places where patients are particularly difficult to reach, said Justyna Janiec-Palczewska, vice president of the Humanitarian Aid Foundation “Redemptoris Missio”.
As emphasized by the organizers, most of Cameroon’s inhabitants have not dealt with a dentist so far. Deprived of dental care, they have their own ways of dealing with toothache. Some, who are better off, use the services of a ‘tooth puller’, a local shaman who has a tooth removed under formidable sanitary conditions.
Among the doctors going to Cameroon are the author of the project, a dentist from Warsaw, Konrad Rylski, for whom this will be the fifth trip, and a dentist from Poznań, Krzysztof Gniazdo.
“We talked to the people we treated. These are many years of pains, we are not even able to describe it from our point of view. In our country, even people who do not have money are able to receive help in dental offices, ”said Rylski.
He added that in Cameroon it is common to treat teeth by performing spells, some patients are able to put a piece of burning wood on the tooth so that it dies and crumbles. The doctor emphasized that in Cameroon he would like to be able to treat his teeth, not extract them, but the African reality is that he had to remove 76 teeth in one day. He emphasized that the problem for African children is not tooth decay, which is common in Poland, but the lack of toothbrushes.
The trip of dentists to Africa is organized under the auspices of the “Children of Africa” Foundation, with the support of the “Redemptoris Missio” Humanitarian Aid Foundation and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The organizers of the project are constantly looking for dentists willing to ensure the continuity of work in the clinic in Cameroon and funds to finance doctors’ trips. (PAP)
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