Monday 15 June 2015

First day in the clinic

Today was the team's first day in the Presbyterian Church of Vanuatu Dental Clinic and Rotary-donated dental van. Off to an early start by "Island time", we arrived at the clinic at 8:30am, greeted at the surgery by Gloria (dental assistant), Debra (operations), Jessie (receptionist), Richard (operations manager) and Bob (Ni-van dental assistant). 

The first job of the day was to unload the 50kg of donated dental materials into the PCV Clinic. Donations from dental companies, surgeries and Rotary consisted of much needed gloves, filling materials, bonds, masks, mirrors, gauze just to name a few! 

After sorting out who was working in the clinic or the van, we were off to a shaky start but finally found our groove by lunch. Susan, Viv, Gloria and Bob were to start the day in the mobile van visiting the local schools, however due to technical issues the van served as a third treatment room. 



Susan and Bob in the Dental Van

The dental clinic consists of two dental chairs, Michelle occupied room 1 with Agnetha and I in room 2. Michelle's treatment consisted of oral hygiene instruction, applying fluoride, cleaning teeth with scalers and diet instruction. After seeing today's patients, Michelle noted that patients had a very good standard of oral care, however due to lack of dental resources gum issues (periodontal disease) was quite a common issue. 



Michelle and Bob in room 1

Agnetha in room 2

My first time manually developing x-rays!

Next door saw Agnetha and I tackling a lot of extractions and fillings with adult patients. After sorting through foreign cupboards and finding our feet, Agnetha and I tackled up to 4 fillings and 1 extraction per patient within an hour appointment! Today marked my first day of manually processing x-rays with developer and fixer as in my day to day routine as a dental assistant in Alice Springs our radiographs are digitally processed! As they say you learn new things everyday! 



Off to dinner after our first day's work!

After finishing the day at 4:30pm, the team already felt a great sense of achievement and were looking forward to the coming week.


Alicia 

1 comment:

  1. Hi Team,
    Fabulous to see that you are settled in and started work! The people in Vanuatu are so lucky to have you there and we are lucky that you all decided to volunteer you time for this worthy Rotary project. Thank you for the posts on your blog…… we are all watching with anticipation! Regards from Jacqui Atyeo and the Rotary District 9500 Vocational Training Team/Scholarships Committee

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