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Roberta Staley is an award-winning magazine writer and the editor of the Canadian Chemical News, published by the Chemical Institute of Canada. She is also a magazine writing instructor at Douglas College and a graduate student at Simon Fraser University.
Tough choices
A Toronto dentist volunteers with Mercy Ships to bring dental care to the Congo
courtesy of Dr. Glen Rodgers
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t was a heartbreaking choice. Every Monday and Thursday, up to 700 people would line up in three ragged rows: men, women and children, all baking under the Congolese sun, all hoping to be one of the lucky ones selected for free dentistry from the NGO Mercy Ships, which provides healthcare to impoverished people around the world. Medical staff would triage the long lines of individuals on the basis of facial swelling—indicating infection—or a cursory look inside the mouth to identify urgent dental problems, says Dr. Glen Rodgers of Toronto, a volunteer dentist with Mercy Ships. Those who were selected were given wristbands to wear to their appointment. Some of the poorer Congolese would sell their wristbands to someone who wasn’t chosen. This would require breaking the coveted strap to get it off. The individual who bought the strap would claim to medical workers that it had accidentally snapped. Always, however, these individuals would be turned away, says Rodgers. “We couldn’t reward the black marketing of these bands.” Still, he regretted the action. “It was a desperate situation. Some who weren’t picked were in pain,” Rodgers recalls. Rodgers and his three fellow volunteer dentists from around the globe could treat 20 patients each a day, or about 400 patients weekly, providing relief to a population affected by a severe dearth of dentists. In the Republic of the Congo where he was based, there are only about a dozen dentists for a population of five million, according to World Health Organization statistics. Rodgers, who is poised to fly to Benin, Africa for his third mission, a three-week undertaking with Mercy Ships, will be stationed once more aboard the Africa Mercy, a 152-metre-long vessel that is the world’s largest private floating hospital. (The NGO has been bringing medical care to the poor since 1978, sailing and docking at port cities in some of the world’s poorest nations.) As with previous missions, most of the dental work will be extractions, says Rodgers. The dental team doesn’t have the resources or time to undertake root canals and, most of the time, the teeth are so decayed they
are beyond saving, he says. Sometimes Rodgers would be confronted by a mouthful of “bombed-out teeth” but would only have time to extract a few, in order to keep to his tight schedule. “I’d say, ‘I can take out two or three teeth. Which are the ones that bother you the most?’ They’ll point, ‘This, this and this.’” As needy as the Congolese are when it comes to dental care, their teeth, on the whole, are generally in better condition than the Ojibway and Cree of northern Ontario where Rodgers spends up to nine months every year on locums. After selling his practice in Barrie, ON, in December 2013, Rodgers decided to structure his work “around my life, rather than my life around my work.” He chose northern Ontario as his new stomping grounds, flying into remote communities to provide dental care. He regularly spends time in the Sioux Lookout zone—a vast area about the size of France—encompassing more than two-dozen Aboriginal Dr. Glen communities northwest Rodgers decided of Thunder Bay. He to structure his work also provides dental “around my life, rather than care to the people of my life around my work,” the Moose Factory and now volunteers his time zone, with its string active. “They don’t come in and dental expertise in of coastal Aboriginal unless there is pain.” African and Aboriginal communities extending The lack of dentists also communities. north from James Bay, the means some patients suffer body of water sitting on the for weeks—even months—with southernmost tip of Hudson tooth infections. As with the Congo, Bay. this often calls for extractions rather than The locums are unique, providing root canals due to a lack of resources and experiences such as polar bear sightings. time, in addition to the advanced degree of Rodgers also partakes in Aboriginal sweat decay from infrequent dental visits, Rodgers lodge ceremonies, feasts and jamborees. In says. “They’ve been waiting three months comparison, the day-to-day work can some- and they’re so fed up they say, ‘Just pull the times be grim, due to what Rodgers refers tooth.’” to as the lowly socioeconomic status—with Providing dental care for Aboriginal paits significant health effects—of many tients as well as Africans has made Rodgers northern First Nations peoples. A diet heavy philosophical. “I have a lot to be grateful in sugary food and drinks, combined with for—you’re much more cognizant of that a lack of knowledge about dental hygiene, when you see the other side.” The work he creates rampant decay among both children undertakes becomes, for him, an expression and adults, says Rodgers. “It is very, very of thankfulness. “It’s very satisfying; it’s good severe in Aboriginal communities.” Part of to be charitable. It’s good for the soul and the problem, he adds, is that many parents the psyche.” and individuals are reactive, rather than proJanuary/February 2017 Just For Canadian dentists
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