Dental treatments can cost a mint, a kick in the teeth for those in hardship.
A polished local philanthropic organisation is giving this less fortunate group something to smile about by funding a pro bono monthly dental service to fill the gap.
The Fifeshire Foundation’s chairperson Peter Verstappen says his organisation receives between four to six applications per month from people needing serious emergency dental treatment.
He says its resources to fully fund these cases were sometimes like pulling teeth.
“Up until now, our response has been to attempt to fund those people to the degree that we can,” he says.
“People can qualify for the $1000 grant from WINZ, for example, if they meet the criteria, but of course, dental is very expensive, and we don’t have the resources to be able to fully fund people’s needs.
“So what we have been working towards for some time is looking at an alternative option, working with the local dental profession.”
Peter says Nelson Dental Centre and Gentle Dental were eager to get their teeth into Fifeshire’s initiative, and staff from these two practices will provide their dexterity to patients who qualify.
“That means that we go through our normal processes of [applicants] providing us budget information that shows exactly what their financial needs are, what other supports they might have going on as well,” he says.
“If they meet our criteria, we then refer them on to the contributing dentist, who then takes the process over from there.
“We’re really impressed and grateful to the dental profession who have picked up on this. It says a lot for their commitment to the community that they are, they’re eager for this to be successful.
“We’re hoping that in doing this we will help cut through some of the extremely expensive elements of dental treatment and put accessible dental care in front of a few more people in our region who seriously need it.”
Nelson Dental Centre principal dentist Dr Pierre Gill treated his first patient who qualified for the Fifeshire-funded dental service on 20 October and is chomping at the bit for more slots to be filled up.
“Dentistry is not cheap, our costs to run the business are huge, and obviously the end user bears the brunt of that… and certainly it would impact people’s ability to afford care.
“I heard accounts [from Fifeshire] of what dental took up and from then I felt, I’m in a position now I work four days a week and I could maybe offer them a service to help them reduce their budget for dental so they could put money towards something else,” he says.
