Vicente Lozano de Luaces, dentist and member of the NGO Dentistas Sin Fronteras: “People who take part in charity actions receive much more than we give”

 

 

 

There are three people who have determined my solidarity vocation: the missionary Pedro Casaldáliga, Mother Teresa, and the missionary Vicente Ferrer. Pedro Casaldáliga was the first missionary I met: he was one of my teachers in Claretiano School. He was a lucid, visionary man with a true missionary vocation; he was sure about the meaning of helping people in greatest need.

 

Then, life brought me to Calculta, where I met Mother Teresa. In that moment todayʼs NGOs did not exist. People went to India to work as a volunteer at any centre, where they were accommodate and fed. I joint the Missionaries of Charity of Mother Teresa. When I arrived they told me: “Now we do not need any doctor, but we have other job for you”. Next morning, they gave me a handcart and we picked up those people who lied on the street. They did not seem people; we touched them to check if they could breath. We put them on the cart and bring them to the mission where we washed them. “What do I do know?”, I asked Mother Teresa. “Once they are cleaned, shake their hands, look and smile at them”, she answered. Most of them died, but we were not able to do anything else.

 

Later, I met Vicente Ferrer and his work also impressed me. He assisted people in greatest need, but he also made a complete intervention in society: women, disabled people, environment… I got enthusiastic about all that, and that is what I most like of the Foundation.

 

 

I am the coordinator of the Foundationʼs Dentristry project, and I take the necessary steps that graduates need to collaborate during one year with the Dental Office located at the Hospital of Kanedal. We work in Anantapur region, in South India, in one of the most disadvantages rural areas of the country. 95 % of our patients are Dalit or untouchables, a discriminated community in India. We assist about two million and half people. Not all the population of the district looks for dental care. The Foundation provides volunteers with breakfast, lunch, dinner and accommodation, and they do not work at weekends.

 

Currently, we have three dental units well fitted with surgical equipment and instruments, and two local dentists, employed by the Foundation, who collaborate with us and give continuity to dental projects when volunteers come back to their county. We do a statistical follow-up of all our work; we elaborate a personalized card for each patient (name, surname, address, etc.). For example: if when returning to a country we observe that less tooth extractions are made, it means that the population has a better dental health.

 

The volunteer work programme also includes a summer project: every year, from July to August, we visit the Vicente Ferrer Foundation accompanied by twenty graduates. In every trip, our twenty kilos baggage includes instruments and drugs. The working plan is different: we organize ourselves in rural working groups and each day we offer dental care in one different village. We arrive at eight oʼclock in the morning, we set up in dining halls or rooms let for us to work, and we finish when sun sets. In a month we assist about 5,000 people. Due to logistic reasons, I usually arrive some days before and stay some days later in order to review the actions carried out. Personally, I would not be able to carry out these charity actions if I was not supported by the Rectorʼs office of the UB, the dean of the Faculty of Dentistry, Dr Sílvia Sànchez, the rectorʼs delegate for the Bellvitge Health Sciences campus, Dr Miquel Viñas, and the head of the Department of Odonto-Stomatology, Dr Juan Salsench. I thank them.

 

That is true; lots of NGOs are working for developing countries. They emerged with a clear aim: to assist those people who do not have all their teeth, suffered oral infections or even are not able to chew. We also have a surgery in the neighbourhood of Carabanchel in Madrid; it is the first one that was opened in our country to assist disadvantaged people. I think that todayʼs young dentists like to collaborate with a NGO. I was a rara avis: I have had social conscience since I was a little kid. I stayed as a volunteer in Borneo when I was studying Medicine. People said to me: “Are you crazy? What do you expect to find there? The beach is the best place to stay in summer”. Now, peopleʼs awareness of this issue has risen. For example, a great part of our instruments come from professional dentists who retire and donate the equipment of their surgeries.

 

Besides my work in DSF India project, I am now coordinating a new programme in the Dominican Republic, in Los Montones, a social depressed region located in El Cimbao mountain range. The Pro Ayuda Comunal Foundation (FUPAC), a local NGO, collaborates in the project. From July August 2012, we assisted 3,512 patients and performed 5,594 operations. We also wanted to set up a project in Haiti; but it has been impossible due to the complex situation of the country.

 

 

 

In India, there is a high incidence of oral cancer due to betel and tobacco chewing. It is a costume to chew leaves of betel mixed with turmeric, pepper, quick lime and tobacco, and this mixture is potentially carcinogenic. We warn our volunteers: “When you explore the mouth, do not pay attention only to broken teeth. Explore also soft tissues to detect possible white stains indicating tumours”. Every year we detect a great number of oral cancers which are later operated at the hospital. Other common diseases are: periodontal disease, pyorrhea, dental cavities, etc. When these patients have toothache, they do not visit the dentist due to several reasons. First, they are day labourers and a dental visit implies stop working. Second, they think that if they have a tooth taken out, they will go blind. Thanks to the work developed by rural working groups, patients can observe that they have a tooth take out, and they do not go blind. We are making a great effort to fight against this ancient belief. In the Dominican Republic, there is less incidence of periodontal disease and men and women take more care of teeth due to aesthetic reasons.

 

 

People who take part in charity actions receive much more than we give. You feel it when an Indian woman holds your hand, or a blind man… I have had patients who went out of the surgery and later came back to give me a banana or a coconut wrapped in newspaper. They do not know how to thank you, they see you as a god and they want to kiss your feet to show their respect. “Please do not go. Come back next year”, they say. And every year we come back, and the patients do so. In India, for example, we carried out mouth explorations in a school of physic disabled girls. These girls live in an isolated world, and suddenly appears a completely unknown man wearing a green uniform, mask and gloves. That can scare them. So, what do we do? I ask their teacher to hold their hands while they are sitting on the dental chair, to speak them in their native language while we work. “Tell the girl that she has to open her mouth, we are going to count her teeth, treat her and then we will give her a present”. By this way we can treat these girls. We always carry with us pens, rubbers and notebooks of the UB and we reward those children who visit the dental surgery with them.

 

Now we are living a really difficult economic situation. Official organizations do not confer more grants to develop projects, and now we depend on the good will of professionals who donate their instruments. In the case of the Vicente Ferrer Foundation, child sponsorship is essential: € 18 per month and children. That money is shared among the community to build wells, purchase grain and buy buffalos for widow women, which are considered a social hindrance.

 

 

It is essential to tackle charity from a new point of view. We are not going to colonize the world; we are going to develop a task. How would you treat patients at a surgery in Madrid or Barcelona? Here you must do the same. You are in the third world, the patient need dental care, so you must treat him or her and this is the most important. You have to explain as clear as possible the problem, its origin and treatment to the patient. Young dentists only have to put in practice what they have learnt with us in university lessons, in the Dental Hospital, and in private surgeries. Taking this knowledge as a departure point, dental care success and quality is guaranteed. But you must also remain in mind that a third world patient is a person who has been scorned, margined, who has been deprived of health care, and our job is to make them feel supported and loved.