The Maasai Dental Camp Experience
After spending three weeks in Kenya at the Maasai Dental Clinic, Dr Vivak Shah and his family have returned.
In the short time they were out there, they felt so welcomed and thoroughly enjoyed the complete experience.
Dr Shah, saw almost 100 patients during his clinical sessions at the Maasai Dental Clinic. Carried out 65 Wisdom and 40 other Teeth extractions. 25 Composite Fillings. As you can tell, it was certainly a very busy time for him at the clinic.
Just like here, his patients there were equally pleased with his clinical work. Watch this young lady talk about her experience. https://youtu.be/rHQsfMg157M
The word of mouth spread fast and by the third day the queue of patients waiting at the gates in the morning grew longer. Dr Shah was called the ‘Fast Dentist’ among the patients treated. Since wisdom teeth extractions are known to take a while, Dr Shah utilised all the three dental chairs available to have patients treated in parallel.
There are 44 million people in Kenya and fewer than 1,000 dentists. The Maasai people of south Kenya live in a particularly underserved area.
The Maasai Dental Clinic get patients who travel from as far as the neighbouring country of Tanzania.
See this patients’ story here https://youtu.be/EwrIiArTYuw
Each year, nearly 4,000 Maasai men, women, and children receive free dental treatment at the Maasai Dental Clinic.
“This short experience has added to my clinical experience in many ways. It has felt very rewarding to be able to alleviate the pain some of these patients have experienced. During my first session, I met a grandmother who tried to take her own wisdom tooth out with a knife due to the pain she was experiencing. However, due to the tooth snapping in the process, she had to make the long journey to get the root extracted. This was only the beginning of what I saw through the next few days.” Says Dr Vivak Shah
Whilst working at the clinic, Dr Shah’s family integrated with the local communities visiting local school and markets with the intention of raising awareness of the importance of dental hygiene.
“A very successful and humbling experience overall for us all. Thank you for all your generous donations to the clinic, we are in discussions with the organisers at World Health Dental Organisation (organisors of Maasai Dental Clinic) to buy a Cavitron Ultrasonic scaling unit for the clinic – this will help drastically improve the dentist’s ability to clean patient’s teeth.” – Dr Vivak Shah
If you would like to support this cause, you can donate here.
