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Their first visit to a dentist

Professionals give refugees free care

By: Carol Sanders

Posted: 10/18/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

Ruth Bonneville / Winnipeg Free Press Yoya Abubeker (left) and Eskandar Ame Waday, who are from Ethiopia, have never been to a dentist.

Three men who grew up cleaning their teeth with tree branches will visit a dentist for the first time in their lives on Saturday.

The refugees from Ethiopia are going to Open Wide, an event in which members of the Manitoba Dental Association offer their services to newcomers for free.

"I'm very happy," said Yoya Abubeker, who arrived in Canada Sept. 26 and is bothered by an extra incisor protruding from his gums.

"Canada has given us an opportunity to see a dentist. This is a great nation," said Abubeker, who worked in his family's import/export business until he fled Ethiopia. He and two other refugees talked about their teeth at Welcome Place, one of the non-profit agencies directing newcomers to Open Wide.

Cavities that have bothered 31-year-old Eskander Ame Waday for a long time will finally get treated. The three men say as members of the Oromo tribe they were persecuted by the Ethiopian government and forced out of the country. Waday was in Grade 11 when he fled to Kenya.

The Oromo make up Ethiopia's largest ethnic group. Some militant Oromo groups have sought independence, a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees report says.

The Oromo have since been targeted and subjected to governmental abuse and detention, the report says.

Ahmed Abdusabur said like most folks he grew up with, he didn't see a dentist. He didn't forgo dental hygiene, though. He'd chew the end of a skinny branch from a date tree until it was soft and bristly, then clean his teeth with it.

"It's surprisingly effective," said Open Wide spokesman Dr. Joel Antel. "You basically need something that's thin and soft (and) won't damage the teeth or gums," he said. "The toothbrush is a more high-tech, fancy version of the same thing."

Still, Abdusabur said he's looking forward to a high-tech cleaning that puts less bark in his bite.

More than 60 dentists and 50 dental assistants and hygienists will volunteer at the sixth Open Wide event in 19 years. They expect to treat more than 350 people with free dental care worth close to$250,000.

They'll do basic fillings, extractions, denture repairs, cleanings and get a root canal started if a tooth is worth saving. Forms are being filled out ahead of time for many of the refugees, Antel said.

On Saturday, patients will get their most pressing issue dealt with -- whether it's a toothache, a cleaning or a filling -- in the 45 minutes allotted for each patient.

Antel has volunteered at past Open Wide events and said they always have more volunteers than space.

"It's a fun time."

Dentists, assistants and hygienists rarely get a chance to work together as a group at the faculty of dentistry at the University of Manitoba.

On Saturday, they will provide dental care en masse, said Antel.

Dentists decided to focus on helping newcomers this year after the federal government quit providing supplemental health-care coverage to privately sponsored refugees.

Refugees arriving in Manitoba are likely to have had minimal or no dental services in their home countries, a dental association poster said.

"Personally, it's a chance to give back," said Antel. "We have an obligation to take care of the community."

Newcomers looking forward to that care say they've been in Canada just weeks but want to give back, too. Waday wants to work and attend classes to become a nurse or a support worker.

"I want to get a job -- any job," said Abubeker.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition October 18, 2012 A2

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