A little over an hour's drive from our hotel to Long Binh elementary
school, our last clinic day and we all look forward to everything going
smoothly. This school is organized and things are looking good at the
start.
Hung starts right away with the dental health education while we set up the clinic in one of the classroom.
All of the children we treat are given a glass of milk while waiting to
receive dental treatment. Many of these kids walk to school without
breakfast so we make sure they get a little nutrition before receiving
dental treatment. We go through 100 lbs. of dry whole milk (from
Holland) during our dental relief at 6 elementary schools. Many years
ago we noticed that the kids waiting in line were hungry and had to walk
home in the heat of the day, we bought sweet rolls to hand out, but
eating solid food before dental treatment provides a problem for us so
we looked into getting soy milk for the kids, a common drink that is
readily available everywhere in VN. But to get someone to cook a large
pot of fresh soy milk at each school we travel to was not possible, we
discovered dry whole milk from Holland that is much more nutritious than
the watered down soy milk, hence we embarked on this new road of
boiling water and make milk from the wholesome dry whole milk powder for
the kids and it has been a great success.
This little girl was hurt in the Typhoon #9, a piece of wood caused the
permanent injury to one eye. We gave her a big bag of gifts and Trang
gave her mother a gift of money as well. We will try to get her to the
eye hospital in Saigon this summer to see if there is a cosmetic
treatment to help the left eye. Typhoon # 9 made landfall in VN on
Sept. 27, 2009, it killed at least 163 people, 23 in the first hour of
landfall, 17 people missing, 616 were injured, total damage is estimated
at $785 million. Typhoon # 9 was part of the second most devastating
tropical cyclone Ketsana in the Pacific 2009 typhoon season, causing
$1.09 billion dollars of damage and 747 fatalities in the Philippines,
China, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.
To have a badly decayed permanent molar removed in this area would cost
at least $5.00, many of the children need to have several removed,
something their parents will not be able to afford. In VN, when you
have a toothache, you buy
one pain pill, whether an Aspirin or
Acetaminophen or Ibuprofen tablet, to help the pain, and that is it, and
if there is a dentist in one of the major cities, he would not take the
tooth out, permanent molars are not easy to remove and many dentists in
VN still are not comfortable doing these surgical procedures. It is
undeniably a great service we can provide for these children since we
know how to apply painless dentistry, we have the skills and the correct
instruments to do it safely in a few minutes.
This little first grader is adorable, the best singer in the school and
she even sang a few songs for our team. She has a crossed eye and will
benefit from a trip to the Eye Hospital this summer as well.
There is a good lesson learned in what happened the day before in Tan
Phu Dong where we had to cancel our clinic day. Today we are in the
village just across the Mekong River from the school yesterday, yet
everything goes exceptionally well, we are able to provide free dental
treatment to 311kids, hand out gifts to 1075 student population of the
school, and 174 gifts to teachers and parents with children under 5 who
came to the dental health education session, a beautifully productive
day without problem with any local official. Not only that, I find the
teachers at Long Binh elementary school caring and loving to their
pupils, going above and beyond the call of duty to assist our team,
rearranging their day and willing to help us so that we can see more
kids with our limited time, they are happy to welcome our team to their
school and grateful for our dental services. It is few and far
between when we come across a school like this one.
This school is on the
top of my list this year and wins the pick for a Five Year Dental Health
Education Program. It will start with the school year 2013 - 2014
until 2017-2018, DDS4Kids will provide all of the students (~1,075) at
Long Binh 2 dental health education sessions per school year and a new
toothbrush for every student each time. Dr. Hue, Hung, and the Tien Giang
Red Cross staff will carry out these sessions. Long Binh elementary
school is the 5th school that was chosen in the past 10 years in Tien
Giang. The previous schools reported the rate of decay among the
students dropped drastically from nearly 100% to 45% - 35% after 5
years, this is more than what I had hoped for, whatever improvement is
considered a great success. We will never know the real impact of our
dental health education program in rural VN, as with any education
effort, the impact could have ripple effect for years to come.
The "Durian Experience" evening. This is the time, Trang and Phuong
generously share with us their precious fruits, it is the first time for
Robin, Mickey, and Shannon to see and taste durian, I don't remember
what Shannon and Mickey said but Robin was beaming with pleasure. It
does taste sweet and creamy, it has been so long since I had fresh
durian so it was a special event for me too. It tasted better than I
had remembered! Paul and Padraic was down the street with Mr. Thanh and
Mr. Lien the Red Cross staff, fraternizing, sharing a few beers and
some food. Mr. Thanh is the vice director of the Tien Giang Red Cross,
he used to avoid "foreigners", I heard through the grapevines that he
doesn't like Americans because for years he stayed away from our team.
But in the past few years, he has waredm up to us and this year, he went
all out to take such good care of our team. I think he finally is
convinced of our commitment to help the children of Tien Giang, he saw
how hard we work to make everything go smoothly in difficult and
primitive conditions. It's a 180 degree turn around for Mr. Thanh and
this is a very good sign. This is one first among many "firsts" this
year, and having Padraic and Paul "bonded" with the Red Cross officials
will definitely strengthen the relationship between DDS4Kids and Tien
Giang Red Cross. The success of DDS4Kids in Tien Giang has a lot to do
with the solid friendship existed in the past 10 years, building on one
"bonding experience" at the time, year after year.
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