Dental experts Philippines bound

Robert Witton and Ruth Potterton will join the Dentaid team, which itself will be part of a wider grouping of relief teams who will be working together across a range of activities, including teaching English, IT, community support training and rebuilding following earthquakes, fires and typhoon damage in Mandaue City on the island of Cebu.

The operation and project activities will be based around Umapad Elementary School. The school is public-funded with approximately 1,100 children of whom the majority are extremely poor. The school offers education to a group termed “scavenger children”, who live in and around the city’s dump sites and who earn a living recycling other people’s waste into money.

“Our mission with Dentaid is to get all the school children dentally fit,” said Ruth.“We’ll do this by offering pain relief treatments where necessary, atraumatic restorative treatment (ART) if possible and fluoride varnish for all the children.”

Atraumatic restorative treatment is an alternative treatment for dental decay where the demineralised and non-sensitive affected parts of the tooth are removed with hand instruments only, requiring no anaesthesia. The cavity is then filled with a self-hardening dental cement.