GREAT Shape, a dental volunteer mission, paid a visit to Ocho Rios, St Ann, for Oral Health Month last week and provided cleaning, extractions, sealants, surgery, dentures, and oral health education to residents at the Eltham Community Centre.

The initiative, which was set up in partnership with the Sandals Foundation and the Ministry of Health, saw dental students from the United States of America set up a temporary dental clinic to offer dental services to residents in the community from October 3 to 7.

Dr Jonny Winfield, a supervising dentist on his third trip to Jamaica, says he is happy to lend his expertise this time, having participated as a student in 2017 and 2018.

“I’m one of the few people who have been on this trip before; everybody’s new,” he told Jamaica Observer Your Health Your Wealth during the clinic. “They didn’t have any junior leads coming. All the leaders are brand new to this so I’ve just been trying to figure out the clinic flow and trying to instil how to see as many patients as possible.

“I’m more focused on helping the students learn and I really want just to instil that we’re doctors, but we’ve been gifted with this privilege and these abilities to help people. It’s not always about making money, it’s about helping people first and foremost. Once we got everything up and going, it was just teaching them how to extract a tooth, walking them through step by step, watching, making sure they don’t do anything really wrong, and letting them learn through experience.”

Winfield says that each student’s learning experience is different because they are at different points in their dental training.

“There’s a variety of different education levels,” he said. “Some do have more experience, but some are lacking education completely, so it’s nice to teach them what a filling is, what an extraction is, and how to take care of their teeth. There are mission trips that happen in the United States and there are those that need help there as well, but it might just be a little bit more prevalent here, especially in this clinic, specifically.”

Winfield says that the community has been receptive to the services it has been offered and welcoming to the visitors. He especially loves how well he is received for sporting dreadlocks.

“The people are just amazing and so nice, it’s always ‘one love’,” he said. “[Everybody’s asking], ‘Waa gwaan?’, hugging, everybody’s so friendly. I used to have long hair and everybody wanted to braid my hair. Now I have dreadlocked hair, so I feel like I really wanted to become a part of the community.

That relationship has also led to more understanding and trust from people visiting for dental treatment, many of whom are unfamiliar with the process.

“Some people come in with fear and are a little bit scared to get stuff done, but, as we talk through it, explain what we’re doing, why we’re doing it, everybody calms down and everybody’s been very receptive,” Winfield said.

Ministry of Health’s (MOH) Chief Dental Officer Dr Irving McKenzie appreciates Great Shape’s outreach in Jamaica and says it has established a good example of best practices in the field.

“We have had a great relationship with Great Shape!,” he said. “The result of which, I think, we in dentistry in Jamaica have a sustainability model, we have a best practice model with how NGOs [non-governmental organisations], faith-based organisations, and volunteer missions can work, in terms of delivering sustainable health-care services and in particular, right now, the dental health-care services to the people of Jamaica.”

Great Shape! is one of the largest dental volunteer missions in the world and started operating in Jamaica in 1989, several months after the passage of Hurricane Gilbert in September 1988. Since then it has been involved in various volunteer missions in Jamaica regarding building schools and roads and helping with ophthalmology, but its major feature is oral health.

Its partnership with MOH was, however, made official in 2006, in association with the Sandals Foundation.

— Rachid Parchment