Dental Health in Rural Ranquitte, Haiti

Mesidor Ilsaint, principal of Calhoun-Spady, believes that one of the most serious public health crises his students face is their poor dental care. Christian Flights International (CFI) once had a team of dentists come several times to train some local citizens in dentistry. The result was that at three local citizens can practice dentistry there (pull teeth, fill cavities, etc.).

When a member of a group visiting Ranquitte showed up with material to fill thousands of cavities, I checked with one of those trained (Jerome Damas) to see if we could use it. He said "sure," and before we knew it a dental clinic was underway.

The dentist who donated the material made plans to visit the campus in June, 2007; in preparation for that visit, Jerome made an inventory of the dental health of the students on campus. Over the course of about 14 days he looked at roughly 1200 mouths, and the data collected was used when the dental team visited.


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