The last week of July, the team at Cadena de Amor had a brigade in the North of Honduras in an area called Santa Barbara. David, the son of Dra. Gloria, helped with the coordination for the team. He is a dentist that works for the local government there.
The wonderful news is that our dentists have been able to secure a Covid vaccine and thus they can now safely provide dental treatment for school children in addition to the dental hygiene education. Hopefully, we can continue to with these brigades and I hope to take a team to Honduras from Oregon in November of this year. I am adding some pictures from the just completed dental program in Santa Barbara and also I plan to write another post about the house that was completed in San Juancito. The November team will plan to build some furniture for the home of the family.
In this photo you can see the team making all the preparations on Sunday for the beginning of the clinic on Monday. As usual, the team is using the multi-purpose room of the grade school. It has been 16 months since Cadena de Amor has been able to use our equipment to treat children.
Here's another picture of the team setting up the clinic in Santa Barbara.
Sometimes the team is required to do a bit of electrical work to be able to accommodate the compressors and sterilizers. The dentists have to acquire some specialized skills to make everything work for the clinics in the rural areas of Honduras.
More work by the team as they prepare to see children the next day. All the equipment and supplies are packed in strong containers as they have to endure a truck ride over some bumpy roads at times. This can take a toll on the equipment from time to time as many dental items are a bit delicate.
It's Monday and the clinic begins with the first children who have arrived. They will arrive in groups and first get dental hygiene instruction including toothbrushing before they take turns in the dental chairs. As you can see the team is taking numerous precautions to protect themselves and others.
In this picture you can see Dra. Gloria work with an assistant to provide dental care for a young boy. Many of the assistants come from the village of San Juancito and travel with Cadena de Amor to various villages. This allows the team to have trained and experienced dental assistants.
Some of the children gathered in a classroom to receive dental hygiene instructions from Dra. Gloria. On the table you can also see the trays with toothbrushes and fluoride rinse.
In the photo you see the children rinse and spit after brushing their teeth and doing the fluoride rinse. It is always good to see a number of mothers present to see the process and hear the hygiene talk.
The Cadena de Amor team has purchased some sanitation equipment to prevent spread of the virus. As you might guess, little vaccine is available as yet for the villages. However, I suspect when the vaccine is available, it may be mandatory. Most schools with the local health centers have a very strict policy on vaccines. In fact, I believe when it comes to the normal childhood vaccines, Honduras has a higher rate of compliance than the U.S.
In the final photo, one can see Dr. Gustavo, the son of Dra. Gloria, helping with the fluoride rinse before treatment. Dr. Jose, the other team dentist, was not able to be on this team. I will have a report and photos from the construction project in a future blog.