Crawley Dentist Travels to Transylvania to Treat Disabled Children
A dentist has visited the home of Dracula to provide much-needed dental treatment to children who have never seen a dentist before. Kellie Boles from West Green recently returned from Transylvania, where she carried out basic dental treatment on disabled children as part of a project organised by Vision Romania.
Kellie was part of a team of volunteers who travelled to Romania to visit a respite camp for children aged upwards from six years old. The team spent a week with the children, extracting more than 60 teeth and placing more than 100 fillings.
Kellie said the experience was rewarding, but hugely challenging. Before she flew out to Romania, she was prepared for a difficult week, but she had no idea of the level of poverty she would come across when the team landed. Kellie expected standards of oral health to be worse than at home, but the children displayed severe health problems and the difference in human rights between Romania and the UK was staggering. Many of the children lived in very cramped conditions and there is a lot of corruption in the country, which means that healthcare is largely inaccessible even though there is a healthcare system in place.
Kellie and the team ran a clinic each day at the respite centre from 9am until 10pm. Most people had never seen a dentist before and many faced hardship, some caring for other members of their family at just eight years old. As well as providing dental treatment, the team also handed out toothbrushes and toothpaste and offered advice about diet with the help of an interpreter.
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