PLANETARY ACTION DENTISTS
For some time we have been in contact with the NGO PLANETARY ACTION who work in Barcelona.
They are a group of dentists who collaborate with projects around the world through an exchange of dentists in Spain.
In collaboration with the MUTUELLE DE SANTÉ DES AGENTS DE L'ETAT in Senegal, a first trip is being prepared for the end of November in order to attend to the dental needs of the area.
MUTUELLE and KORBIS AGRI will be in charge of the logistics, transport, accommodation and diets of the dentists as well as the purchase of medical equipment and PLANETARY ACTION they provide the trips to Senegal for all the volunteers, the rest of the medical equipment and the dentists.
Taking advantage of its experience in international dental campaigns, the NGO Acción Planetaria visited Senegal, from November 23 to December 7, 2019, invited by the health mutual of state agents, MSAE and the Korbis Agri Association.
We worked for 9 days, starting in the north of the country and then ending in the center of Senegal. Our mission, every day, was to establish and dismantle at the end of the day, a dental clinic in a school, a medical center ... always accompanied by the mutualists and Mr. Omar Diatta.
Our team consisted of 5 dentists in the first week and 3 dentists in the second week. In addition, we had 5 other Spanish volunteers and several Senegalese volunteers.
Our mobile clinic is divided into 5 departments: Reception, an area for caries, an extraction area, a sterilization area and another for removing shoes.
Each department has its own manager and its own safety and hygiene protocol. We register for each patient, the treatments received during our campaigns, in our computer software in order to have continuity and medical monitoring of each patient, especially if we repeat the dental campaign the following year.
Diagnosis seen during these two weeks:
Total lack of dental hygiene.
Periodontal problems.
Polished caries with completely destroyed parts.
Tartar build-up.
Ontotontogenetic infections with multiple cysts in children as in adults.
Pigmentation of the teeth due to fluorosis and poor water quality.
A significant lack of hygiene and sterilization protocol has been noted by some local dentists. We think it would be interesting to do a training course on this topic., it is proposed to come back 1 week and train them.
