By: Joel Rubin
For Dr. Ralph Howell, years of wishing and hoping and planning for a free dental clinic in his hometown of Suffolk nearly came to a screeching halt just after noon on March 8.
A 185 PSI compressor, on loan from a local agency, suddenly stopped and killed all power to air and vacuum lines and effectively silenced drills and electric brushes that Howell and his fellow dentists were using to clean molars, fill cavities and suction body fluids. “They could continue doing extractions and examinations, but that was about it,” said veteran dental technician Bill Hall, who was in charge of setting up all the equipment on the floor of Kings Fork Middle School that day. “I’ve been doing this for 15 years, and this is the first time we’ve ever had a compressor go down.”
Fortunately Dr. Howell, a highly respected dentist in the community, had connections and a calm disposition. “I made a couple calls and was able to rent a compressor within an hour,” he said. Dr. Howell saved the day.
Good thing for patients like house painter Julie Price of Suffolk, who had not been to the dentist in 20 years and day care worker Deloris Boone of Franklin, who hadn’t seen one in 13. “I don’t have insurance and I couldn’t afford to even pay for xrays,” said Price, who was preparing to have two cavities filled. “Thank goodness they have this.”
“This” was the first Mission of Mercy or MOM project ever held in Suffolk. The Virginia Dental Association Foundation began these outreach efforts in 1999 in rural Wise County and, along with VDA dentists, staffed some 60 of these one or two-day events since. For Dr. Howell, whose father Leroy and daughter Dani, a VCU dental student, were also among the volunteers on the floor treating the 500 men and women who streamed into the all day makeshift clinic, MOM was the culmination of months of preparation.
“We knew there is a need in this part of the state, but did not know how urgent it was very recently,” said Miriam Beiler, who runs the Western Tidewater Free Health Clinic, which had a key role in the run-up to the event. “We had planned to take registrations up until 11 o’clock in the morning but had to cut them off at 7:30 a.m. That means there are a number of people who will now have to go another year without care.”
The City of Suffolk, whose mayor Linda Johnson participated in a celebratory “milk toast” to kick-off the MOM, was a partner in the effort, along with the school system, police department, Obici Health Care Foundation, Virginia Health Care Foundation, Suffolk Partnership for a Healthy Community and local physicians.
MOM Project organizers drink in the 15th anniversary of the dental clinic with a milk toast.
MOM Project only needed minimal advertising to raise awareness of the opportunity to receive the services that more than 60 VDA dentists and their support teams from across the state were willing to provide at no charge. Many arrived a day early to triage patients in the school auditorium and put bands around their wrists to assure they would be treated the next day.
The dentists could hardly do it alone. Supporting them at makeshift dental stations, furnished with patient lights, portable chairs and ample amounts of gloves, gauze, syringe tips, cotton balls, masks, mouthwash and lydocaine, were several dozen students from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, and not just from its dental school. “This was invaluable training for us to be able to talk directly with the patients about their medications, ” said Lauren Grecheck, a VCU pharmacy student. Her professor, Dr. Evan Sisson, watched proudly as his charges interacted with each other as well as VCU nursing students and the dentists. “You can only learn so much by studying cases on paper. You need to have real world experience, and they get it at these MOM projects.”
For patients like Levon Satterfield, who was last treated by a dentist a decade ago, MOM gave him back his smile. “I have had a real bad tooth for quite a while but was able to get a crown today,” he said. “I am very blessed and also very impressed by the work these people are doing.” That included the man who fashioned his crown, Dr. Michael Fernandez, who was creating them at a steady clip and glad to do it. “We haven’t had a MOM event in eastern Virginia in a long time so I’m happy they staged this one in Suffolk so I could be part of it.”
At other chairs were dentists from Portsmouth (including Dr. Steven Carroll, assisted by his 20-year-old daughter Jessalin, who is considering a dental career) and Fairfax, and from Richmond and Chester, where Sam Galston runs a family and cosmetics practice. “I try to come to as many MOM events as I can,” said Galston. “It’s what professionals in health care should be doing, and I’m proud that the VDA is a leader in providing treatment to those who so desperately need it but cannot afford it.” Rasheka Smith, an ODU psychology graduate with a three year old at home, never thought she would be one of Dr. Galston’s patients this day. “My child is covered under Medicaid, but I don’t have insurance, so this was a godsend.”
This was the first MOM in Suffolk, but it may not be the last because of how many turned out to see their dentists. “I had no idea it was like this,” said VCU pharmacy student and Suffolk native Melissa Ellis. “I volunteered at the Wise County MOM last year and thought this was only a problem in rural areas. I was wrong.”
This article will appear in a special 15th Anniversary insert in the April, May and June 2014 edition of the Virginia Dental Journal.
