When Dentistry For Every Village Foundation accepted the challenge to team up with Mayor Ma. Lourdes “Madir” Alejandrino and build a second dental clinic for the poor and underserved residents of Arayat, Pampanga, the leadership expected a good result but not at the magnitude it turned out to be.
The clinic was officially opened last February at the PagCor Building located at the town center.
The concept of building a second municipal dental clinic was brought about by the unbelievable shortcomings of the dental clinic designed and provided by the Department of Health (DOH) at the new Super Health Center built for the municipality.
For some reason, the space allotted for a dental clinic by the DOH engineers and designers was very small leading the foundation leadership to conclude that they know nothing about dentistry. It was just a space for dental chair and a few hand instruments. That, naturally limited what procedures can be done by the municipal dentists. There was no x-ray unit provided, nor a proper dental sterilizer dedicated for the dental clinic alone. More importantly, there were no dental laboratory instruments and supplies provided.
All these short comings did not go un-noticed by the Foundation. Therefore, when the foundation design team drew up the plans for the second dental clinic, they were addressed accordingly.
The foundation designed a dental clinic with patient comfort, safety and quality of service in mind. It was large enough to even have its own patient waiting area and a private office for the dentist. They also provided instruments that made the second dental clinic the pride of the municipality, including a well-equipped dental lab and a high-tech sterilization alcove that has an automatic instrument washer, an ultrasonic instrument cleaner and an 18L steam/pressure sterilizer. A computer-assisted digital x-ray system was also provided.
With that, members of the municipal dental staff headed by Dr. Frank Kibanoff were able to provide under wholesome clinical ambiance, more dental procedures including but not limited to improved clinical diagnosis, restorations, oral prophylaxis, endodontics and prosthetic procedures. Of course, they also provided extractions.
Recently, periodic reports from Dr. Kibanoff and his staff indicated that the first batch of more than 50 edentulous patients were provided free dentures funded by the Municipal Social Welfare Department through a program initiated by Mayor Alejandrino dubbed as “Ngiting Madir Project”.
Another batch of 50 patients are on the waiting list and hopefully will receive their dentures before the year ends.
The number of patients provided with dentures and the many others that have received free dental services since February vividly illustrate the magnitude impact of the well-equipped dental clinic provided by Dentistry For Every Village Foundation to the people of Arayat.
It superseded all expectations, a real game-changer !
The Dentistry for Every Village Foundation, Inc., raises funds by seeking grants and donations to build dental clinics. These clinics are donated to health care institutions that have the resources to house the facility, experiences and expertise to run them efficiently, and whose management is supportive of the cause.
