Dr Ghassan Radi, founder of dental charity Smile Again Dentistry, talks about his work creating a dental support network for local communities in Sierra Leone, West Africa.
With a population of around 7.5 million people and a critical health workforce shortage, Ghassan has been travelling annually to Sierra Leone since 2018 to encourage the establishment of dental services in a country where dental care is limited, largely private, and almost exclusively based in the capital – Freetown.
How it started
In 2018 one of my patients, a clergyman from Sierra Leone, asked me to join a medical mission to his home country to help with much needed dental care. I was delighted to accept his invitation and travel with the team to different district hospitals to assist and exchange skills. Once there, it was immediately apparent that there were no dentists or dental units anywhere, even in the hospitals.
Having witnessed the desperate need for dental care amongst the local people, I made two further trips to Sierra Leonne with the aim of setting up temporary dental units for urgent dental treatment, and to train local healthcare workers to become dental therapists and run the units once I had returned home.
A lack of equipment
The lack of suitable dental equipment was a major obstacle during those first trips and some of the adult cases we were seeing were beyond help. The majority of our work involves giving anaesthetics and extracting teeth. We had to be prepared to treat whatever situation presented – such as complications resulting from an infected tooth left untreated for a long time. However the lack of equipment was restricting the treatment we could provide.
One case that stood out was that of a young schoolgirl with a decayed canine that was causing her a lot of distress. At the time we didn’t have any kind of equipment to manage the situation and sadly I ended up having to extract the tooth. With the right equipment in place I could have easily restored and saved it.
Invaluable support
The team at NSK UK heard about the work of Smile Again Dentistry in Sierra Leone and, to my surprise, they contacted me to offer their support. They presented me with a VIVA ace mobile dentistry system that they pledged to service and maintain as required.
The VIVA ace is very light and therefore easy to carry and set up in any location. It comes complete with a micromotor, ultrasonic scaler, syringe and suction unit which means we can deliver more advanced dental treatment wherever the patient is situated.
NSK also very generously donated a number of NSK handpieces, which allow us to treat and restore dentition rather than just extract. This equipment has proved invaluable and I am very grateful for NSK’s continuing support.
Our mission
We have now established six urgent dental care clinics away from Freetown to serve more local communities and we continue to train local dental therapists to run these clinics throughout the year. Our therapists also provide outreach clinics in remote areas capable of treating patients in urgent need before the problems become too advanced and therefore untreatable.
We are also focussing more on children, with dental health promotors visiting local schools giving oral health advice and establishing prevention programmes, as well as providing early diagnosis and treatment to avoid the life-threatening conditions that can arise from simple tooth decay.
The work continues
The mission keeps evolving and I continue to educate, mentor and motivate our dental teams in Sierra Leonne from the UK, where cases are regularly sent to me to assess and monitor.
Aside from the work of the charity, it has been a great pleasure for me to sponsor the first therapist I trained in Sierra Leone, Mohammed Jalloh, to attend dental school in Cyprus. He has been on every mission with me and his dream has always been to become a fully qualified dentist. No one deserves this opportunity more than him.
The long-term plan is to sponsor more therapists to train in dentistry abroad and then, when more are qualified, to open a dental centre of excellence in Sierra Leone, which will treat the population, as well as providing vital education to local healthcare workers.
The Smile Again Dentistry project is also active in the UK where my practice helps the homeless community in West London. Every first Sunday of the month, we open the doors of Acton Town Dental Practice to the homeless and provide access to essential dental treatment and support to those who need it most.
We work alongside Acton Homeless Concern, Ealing Soup Kitchens, The Upper Rooms (West Ealing) and St Mungo’s – to name but a few organisations. On the day, our patients are provided with drinks and hot meals courtesy of The Village Kitchen. This is a project I would like to expand to create a template and support system to help others to provide a similar service across the UK.
To find out more about the work of Smile Again Dentistry or to make a donation, visit smileagaindentistry.co.uk and to find out more about the VIVA ace visit www.uk.nsk-dental.com/products/mobile-dentistry/mobile-vivaace/.
This article is sponsored by NSK.
