Even though I’m now a retired dentist, after a career spanning 40 years it is quite difficult not to find myself thinking of teeth and oral hygiene.
In 2019, before I stepped away from the chair, I was part of the Dentaid team of volunteer dental professionals on the first of my three professional visits to Uganda. Uphill Junior School was on the schedule for a visit, of course! The clinics at our school and in the surrounding community demonstrated very quickly how much dental care was required and how little was available countrywide, especially in rural areas.
As a result of that trip, and encouraged by Dentaid’s already established toothbrushing programme at two schools in the east of Uganda, I set about organising the similar scheme for Uphill. Loaded with toothbrushes, toothpaste, and oral hygiene posters, the trustees headed out to Uganda at the beginning of 2020. Our teachers and school nurse were excited by the idea of the whole school population being able to toothbrush daily in school. After a series of workshops and practical demonstrations everything was in place and the campaign started.
However, almost as soon as that visit ended, along came COVID and the resulting 22-month lockdown of schools in Uganda.
With that huge disruption, it was impossible not to fear that the work would all have been for nothing. However, it was a lovely surprise to find, on our first post-COVID visit in 2022, the kids were all brushing their teeth in school.
With a few more practical sessions of supervised brushing, the programme of daily toothbrushing became established. The school nurse was soon able to report in the termly health summary that there were now only very occasional toothache problems, and that the incidence of halitosis are been reduced to almost nothing.
In fact toothbrushing was such a hit with the youngsters that if they lost their brushes they were upset and immediately asked for another one. Additionally they loved the taste of toothpaste so much that it was difficult to get them to stop brushing and go back to class!
Generous donations of toothbrushes have since been given to the school by a local businessman, so over the intervening years, the toothbrushing programme has become part of daily school routine at Uphill.
Moving on to 2025, I was asked if I would help find venues for the latest Dentaid clinics and liaise with local community leaders in the Uphill Junior School area of western Uganda. This was an opportunity I simply couldn’t turn down. In particular, it would be a perfect opportunity to screen all the Uphill kids to find out if the reported improvement in their oral hygiene was real and confirmed by numbers.
I am delighted to say that of the 173 Uphill pupils examined by Dentaid, 134 required just a fluoride varnish preventive treatment. Those that needed more active treatment were mostly the youngest children in kindergarten, those who have not yet had the benefit of the years of daily toothbrushing in school.
There is a large number of children in the kindergarten classes, and they are at an age when supervised brushing by an adult is advised. As there are limited pairs of staff hands to help with that, some of the older children in the P6 class are going to help. They will guide the wee ones on a couple of sessions each week to help improve their toothbrushing and their general oral hygiene.
Overall, the Dentaid clinics during the first week of the September trip, held at Uphill Junior School, Iruhuura Primary School, and in the nearby town of Bigodi, saw 1186 patients of whom 633 were children. As a 40-year veteran, I can assure you that those numbers make for very busy surgeries.
I am incredibly grateful to Gail Taylor, overseas coordinator for Dentaid, for agreeing to help the the western Ugandan communities which I am involved with. The need for dental care in the area was, and still is, huge but the Dentaid trip has made a difference. Feedback received from patients included some of the elders saying they have had their toothache of 20 years finally sorted, and many saying they would have had to save for years to pay for treatment.
A HUGE thank you to Gail, all the UK dental volunteers, our Ugandan dentists, Uphill Junior School Director Elius, the mayor of Bigodi town, the staff and head teachers of the schools, our Dentaid drivers, and the staff and owner of the Ruwenzori View Guest House who made the trip such a success. Perhaps something in the way of more regular access to dental treatment for these rural communities will be possible in the future. Ever a hope…
By Liddy Laird, Uphill Trustee
Tags: Dentaid, Dental Hygiene, oral hygiene, Toothbrushing, Uphill Junior School
