Our Vision:
"To provide high quality dental care
and treatment and to educate patients and the community about the
importance of dental care and oral hygiene."
In our dentistry department we have a Dentist and a Dental Assistant. We work
from Monday to Friday, visiting clinics on Wednesdays and Fridays.
Our work in the hospital involves giving oral hygiene instructions, cleaning
teeth, filling teeth, extracting teeth, taking x-rays and health promotion.
We don't do specialised work such as orthodontic
dentures, gold onlays/inlays, or root canal
treatment. These are referred to Ngwelezane, King George
V Hospital
and King Edward VII
Hospital.
Most patients don't brush their teeth, and many complain of toothache as a
result of carries and gingivitis.
These days we have the added problem of HIV. Some of the patients have signs
and symptoms of HIV in the mouth such as candida,
gingivitis, lymphadenopathy and herpes simplex.
People living in this area have little knowledge about dental care and do not
regard it as high priority. The majority of people do not come for regular
check-ups. Lack of knowledge is a real problem--people only know about
extraction and not about other options like fillings. We feel our patients
have a right to have more knowledge; for them to know that extraction is not
always the best answer. Prevention is better than cure, and our aim is to
educate people in our community about preventing decay and oral hygiene.
We visit 8 different clinics--Mnqobokazi, Tshongwe,
Manaba, Mduku, Oqondweni,
Mabibi, Ezimpondweni and Mbazwana. We alternate
between these clinics. Our work in the clinics mainly involves extracting
teeth.
Monday is the busiest day of the week in the hospital, seeing approximately
20 patients, while the other days we see roughly 15 patients a day. At the
clinics we sometimes see up to 40 patients.
We are highly committed to our work and to our patients. We aim to give our
patients high quality dental care and treatment because we feel they deserve
it; our patients are our first priority. The reason we are here doing this
work is because of the patients and the people in our community, and we love
what we do.
We give these patients something to reduce the infection like mouth washes
and creams, and clean the teeth. The first signs and symptoms of HIV are seen
in the mouth, so as a dental team we play a major role in recognising
these in the early stages so that the patient can get help.
