Needy pensioners in the Western Cape are being provided with full sets of teeth for free
Rob Davies
Most of us take having a full set of teeth for granted. We pay no thought to crunching up a packet of crisps, navigating our way through a mealie or pulverising a pizza.
Yet there are many thousands of elderly people for whom these are impossible acts, simply because they do not have the dental equipment to do so.
The elderly are often forced to subsist on a diet of tea and toast, leading to malnutrition and health problems, especially in the country’s many impoverished areas.
Scince 1991 the University of the Western Cape (UWC) and the Desmond Tutu Educational Trust’s Elderly Denture Project has aimed to remedy this situation by supplying needy elderly people in the Western Cape with free dentures.
The Desmond Tutu Educational Trust is funded mainly by USAid and provides financial grants to UWC and four other institutions in the Western Cape.
The executive director of the trust, Edna van Harte, says that the Elderly Denture Project’s impact is twofold.
“This very important project not only aims to improve the oral and general health of the elderly, but also gives dental students the opportunity to get clinical experience while they are studying.
“Students’ community awareness is also increased and they gain extremely valuable workplace skills to help them later in their careers.
“Students are also sensitised to the needs of disadvantaged communities, while rural students get experience working in urban communities.”
According to Van Harte, many of the patients who require dentures are part of the legacy of the apartheid system.
“In the past the rights of many people to proper dental care were violated. In the Western Cape especially, schoolchildren’s teeth were extracted without second thought. This led to a poor dental health culture, as well as the misconception that so-called coloured people like not having their front teeth.
“Re-education has been a tough job, but we are trying to teach people that good dental health is essential.”
Andile Blaai, the Desmond Tutu Educational Trust programme’s administrator, says that the project also helps students to become self-sufficient.
“Students taking part in the work-study project require less and less mentorship. They become more confident and self-sustaining.”
The project also contributes towards the financial needs of needy students.
“Many students have difficulty in paying their fees. By taking part in this project students earn money and can pay their fees. Sixty per cent of the money students earn from their participation in the project is paid directly into their fee accounts, while 40% goes to the students,” says Blaai.
“Students must focus on their academics and may work in their June holidays to pay their fee accounts and earn further experience. Structuring our work-study programme in this way ensures that students are successful in their chosen courses.”
Most of the project’s patients are treated at UWC’s faculty of dentistry, which is based in the Mitchell’s Plain Community Health Centre. The faculty, one of only two World Health Organisation collaborating centres in Africa, is headed by Professor Mohammad Hanif Moolah.
“Our catchment area is very large, stretching from Ocean View to Khayelitsha and Mitchell’s Plain all in all we serve about 1,5-million people. We see about eight to 14 elderly patients daily, but they make up a small part of the total number of patients we treat.
“On any given day we might see between 60 and 100 new patients, as well as a huge number of appointment patients.
“The vast majority of patients are from disadvantaged communities, and cannot afford to pay for the service they receive. Up to 55% of the people in the clinic’s catchment area are unemployed,” says Moolah.
“Patient’s fees don’t cover 0,001% of the clinic’s annual running cost of between R20-million and R25-million.”
The project’s first patients were treated at the Guguletu Old Age Centre in 1991. Peninsula Technikon dental technology students joined the project in 1994, providing much-needed technical and laboratory services required for the construction of dentures.
The project was then moved to its present site in 1996 after UWC’s dental faculty was relocated from Tygerberg hospital.
A total of 136 dental students have taken part in the programme.
Paul Tissong, a patient from Beacon Valley, says that the service at the clinic is “the best in the world” and that he has never been uncomfortable in the chair that is feared by many.
“The doctors tell me I’m a strong guy,” says Tissong.
Ishmael Jackson Sofute from Guguletu was having his dentures fitted when the Mail & Guardian visited the clinic.
“I’m going to be very happy now, everything is going to be good,” said Sofute. With such a sparkling new set of pearly whites, who are we to argue?