I look at one picture in my office of a 4-year-old boy dressed in his best for his first ever dentist appointment at the new Kids In Distress (KID) Dental Clinic. He has 14 teeth, eleven have cavities and the two front teeth are missing, rotted out, most likely from being put to bed since infancy with a bottle. He needs two implants not covered by Medicaid. I am transfixed by the missing front teeth of the four year-old, and I can’t help thinking … does he ever smile? Given his family’s economic circumstances and the high cost of implants, it seems a possibility that his two front teeth will not be replaced in his lifetime without intervention. I wonder if I am witnessing the most defining crossroads in this child’s life, and it is occurring at the age of 4.The other photo in my office is of a 7-year-old girl crying from pain. She needs six root canals.
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Thomas Grant, NSU College of Dental Medicine D4, and Diego Bonilla, Dental Assistant, work on a patient.
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In 2011, KID opened a 12 chair pediatric dental clinic in a 1500 square-foot office building at our Wilton Manors campus. We brought in students, residents and faculty from Nova Southeastern University’s College of Dental Medicine to provide dental services to the children. Generous seed money from donors such as Health Foundation of South Florida, helped with the expense of setting up a large-scale charitable dental clinic. The model is unique for using a social services agency to provide health services to the vulnerable in collaboration with a university academic program. The program’s objective is to provide affordable dental care to any child in South Florida, including the tens of thousands of impoverished children living in Broward County who find it difficult to access a dentist. National Statistics rank Florida the lowest in the nation for children accessing dental care.
With that sobering thought in mind, we continue to encounter tremendous unforeseen challenges – one is the amount of time as well as the number of professionals needed to address such severe cases of infection and decay, and the second is being able to raise the funds necessary to treat these uninsured children.
We know we are the right agency to provide this service as our presence in thousands of the most at-risk homes in Broward County every year helps influence appointment setting, insurance enrollment, and preventative health practices. Our established relationship with Nova Southeastern University and other social services agencies in our community also assists with this responsibility.
But at the heart of it, both Kids In Distress and Nova Southeastern University agree: Given the long-lasting impact untreated dental decay has on a child’s overall health, self-esteem, future job prospects, and quality of life, providing children in South Florida with this resource is simply the right thing to do.
Think about it … what is the point of making sure children have safe homes, if a situation just as dangerous lies within their own bodies?
