ORM Dental Programme

The ORM Dental programme is a vital component of our medical programme. Dental care is often overlooked leading to many health complications. When we arrived the children had no access to water, let alone a tooth brush or tooth paste. Any dental emergencies were addressed at the local dental facility in the village. Unfortunately due to the medical crisis in Moldova at that time, there was very poor financing in the dental care facilities, leading to a make do attitude, where by sterile dental intervention was not guaranteed. Many Moldovans, including the children we work with, unfortunately contracted different forms of the Hepatitis virus due to non sterile procedures and reusing of dental equipment.  There was no restorative work done, extractions was the only intervention at the time.

Also many of the children that ORM work with are on numerous different anti-convulsant medications to keep their seizures under control (there are currently 117 children with epilepsy in the orphanage). One of the accepted side effects of these medications is that it can be detrimental to the teeth, both in colouring and in dental structure. This coupled with the fact that no one had brushed their teeth in many years lead to 100% gum infection which often lead to further medical complications including heart valve infections.

It was also heartbreaking to see children who were being forced to face so much already have their self esteem fall when they would return with many of their teeth pulled leaving unsightly gaps, in many cases entire sections of teeth were pulled, making eating, talking and swallowing an issue.

To protect these beautiful children we installed a state of the art dental facility on the grounds of the orphanage and recruited specialists from the capital to come and start to tackle the uphill battle against teeth and gum decay and to carry out restorative work rather than just extractions. We assumed (incorrectly) that we would have a battle on our hands to convince the children to see the dentist. They showed no fear, their strength never ceases to amaze us. When we do have an anxious or non willing patient on our hands, our paediatric dentist knows all the tricks in the book on how to calm that child and never rushes them. She takes her time and even if it takes days or weeks to convince the patient that there is nothing to fear, she lets them dictate the pace.

This wonderful programme is kept alive through your donations. If you would like any further information on how to help, please contact us or phone us on 01 2827100.