Bridge2Aid welcomes industry champions to Tanzania

For Steve Booth, managing director at Straumann; Patrick Allen, managing director at Henry Schein Dental; Bob Newsome, commercial director at Dentisan and Alison Speak, HR director at Oasis Dental Care, the trip is likely to be an eye opening, sobering experience.

Steve Booth, one of the industry champions, said, “I am excited at the prospect of seeing what has been achieved by Bridge2Aid and although I’m sure it will be a humbling and quite challenging experience, I am also looking forward to meeting some of the patients who have been helped so much by the provision of basic dental care made possible through the support of UK dentistry.”

During the five day trip, the group will see some of Bridge2Aid’s vital work in relieving the constant, debilitating pain, from which so many of the local community suffer. Bridge2Aid’s training programme is a fundamental tenet of their philosophy and is designed to equip local people with the knowledge and resources by which they can offer pain relief and basic preventive care. The two week training programme is one of 12 being run this year in isolated rural locations in Tanzania. The one being visited is in Kasamwa and during the tour the industry representatives will see for themselves how rural clinical officers are taught by volunteer dentists how to extract decayed and painful teeth, how to manage infection, basic preventive oral health education and how to diagnose and recognise complicated cases which need to be referred.