By Joel van der Veen
SASKATOON — A Davidson native was part of a group of dentists, hygienists and other assistants who spent nine days in Guatemala last month, bringing dental care to patients in some of the country’s most remote regions.
Erik Johnson, 27, the son of Everett and Vonné Johnson of Davidson, is finishing up his four-year program at the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Dentistry.
He said he and a fellow graduate, Dacre Hamilton, were invited to join the trip by Dr. Nekky Jamal, who operates Wayside Dental Clinic in Lloydminster and has hired Johnson and Hamilton to begin work there after their graduation.
The group — which included seven dentists, three assistants, two hygienists and about a dozen other helpers — visited Guatemala from March 13 to 22.
Johnson said the group saw hundreds of patients as they travelled to different villages, most of them in remote, mountainous areas, where poverty is widespread and access to dental care is limited.
On top of that, many of the locals have little access to clean drinking water and instead consume soft drinks like Coca-Cola. The high level of sugar in those drinks exacerbates the problem, allowing for cavities and extensive tooth decay to run rampant.
The trip was organized with the non-profit group Kindness in Action, which has sent other groups on similar missions to Peru, Nicaragua and various African countries.
The group set up mobile clinics and offered their services to any patients who showed up. This included pulling teeth, performing fillings, doing general cleaning — “whatever we could do for them,” in Johnson’s words.
Johnson said there was some “culture shock” as many of the locals had never encountered Caucasians before, but they were welcomed and thanked in each place.
“We were these white guys that were rolling into their village,” he recalled, adding that even some of the teenage patients they saw had never visited a dentist before. “They definitely don’t have routine dental care going on. . . They’re basically left alone up there to fend for themselves.”
While the team did not have the equipment to perform complex procedures like root canals, they handled hundreds of patients each day, also presenting each one with a small gift and toothbrush after their check-ups were complete.
To read the complete story, pick up the April 13 edition of The Davidson Leader.