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Activities
Linked to the six Philani clinics are currently some eighty (80) Health or Outreach Workers. These Outreach Workers are township mothers who, despite their poverty, have healthy and well nourished children and are therefore named “positive deviators”. These mothers have been elected and trained to look up other mothers with under-nourished children, including mothers with HIV/AIDS, and the Outreach Workers are being provided with basic oral hygiene training by dental personnel engaged by the Foundation. For this training and to support the Outreach Workers in their continuing work in disseminating dental health information, the Foundation provides education material in the form of pamphlets, brochures and tooth models etc.
The Outreach Workers will refer children they meet, or discover, with those more acute cases or more extensive need of dental care, to the dental clinic for treatment. The Outreach Workers are provided repetitive and further training and their work is continuously supervised and evaluated.
Cooperation with the Faculty of Dentistry, University of Western Cape (UWC)
The overall objective of the Foundation is to improve the dental health for, preferably, the children in the township of Khayelitsha. A base line study began in May 2007 in cooperation with UWC and the Institute of Odontology, University of Göteborg. The main points of this base line study involves the registration of numbers of teeth, numbers of teeth with cavities and periodontal status of children up to 6 years of age. The first part of the study was conducted as an examination work by two Swedish dental students during June/July 2007 and its results are summarised here. So far some 200 children have been screened. During May, June and July 2009 additionally 500 children will be examined by four Swedish dental students. It is estimated that the results of this base line study will be statistically reliable.
In a few years, the plan is to conduct a new oral status study, in much the same way as the base line study and hopefully a comparison between the results of the two studies will prove a general improvement of the oral status among children.
An agreement has been met between the Foundation and UWC implying that the dental clinic at Philani constitutes a satellite clinic to the Faculty of Dentistry at UWC. The advantage of this is that the clinic staff will be provided supervision and support from UWC and furthermore, that UWC will facilitate for Swedish (volunteering) dental personnel to obtain formal work permits at the dental clinic.
Further dental student exchange between the Faculty of Dentistry at UWC and the Institute of Odontology, University of Göteborg is underway. There is a great interest among Swedish dental students to conduct their examination works at the dental clinic. Quite a number of requests for this have been received.
The Dental Clinic
The dental clinic constitutes two fully equipped treatment rooms (see drawing and pictures). The oral hygienist, Ms. Ntsiki Khau, commenced her half-time employment at the clinic on 7th April 2008. She lives in Khayelitsha and speaks Xhosa (in addition to English). Ntsiki has previously worked for two years as an oral hygienist at a private dental clinic.
The dental clinic is open for dental volunteers and anyone interested in this type of work can make a note of this here.
An agreement has been met with the Management of Dentistry within the Region Västra Götaland (VGR) regarding the possibility for dentists, employed by the Region, to work at the dental clinic during turns of 4 weeks under favourable terms, as an element in their competence development. Inquiries regarding this opportunity was disseminated to all VGR dentists in 2008 as well as in 2009, and a total of some 75 dentists have reported their interest. Out of those, two dentists were elected to work at the clinic during August 2008 and two more dentists will work at the clinic during August 2009.
Also other Regions or county councils in Sweden have shown interest in similar arrangements. During February 2009 a dentist from Region Halland worked on a volunteering basis at the clinic.
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