Expanding access in Uganda

Dentaid has a long standing commitment to support outreach dental projects and send volunteers to Uganda where they provide oral health education, tooth brushing programmes and pain relieving treatment. The charity is now hoping to support a new dental clinic at Wagagai flower farm and establish the first dental lab in the east of the country.

Around 2,000 people work at Wagagai flower farm and the owners provide healthcare for staff and their families. However, there is no permanent dental unit and Dentaid is fundraising to help provide a permanent clinic that would benefit 8,000 people. The charity is also looking at locations for a dental lab to make dentures – a service that currently requires patients’ impressions to be taken to the capital Kampala by bus, resulting in long waiting times.

A team of UK volunteer dental professionals spent two weeks in Uganda, treating around 1,000 people who have no other access to dental care. They started at Food Step orphanage treating very young children who were being cared for after being rescued from extreme poverty. They also visited Kampiringisa children’s prison, checking the youngsters’ teeth, providing fluoride treatment and carrying out many extractions and fillings to get 143 children out of dental pain. Some of the volunteers also went to the slums of Mbale where they set up a clinic in a local church. Among the 45 people they treated was the local policeman who had never seen a dentist in his life.