Free Dental Clinic Draws 1,100

[NutmegYankee]

Among the 1,100 people who attended a free dental clinic at the XL Center on Friday -- the first in Hartford – was 26-year-old stay-at-home mom, Ghada Abdalla; her husband, doctoral student Mahmoud Abdalla, 30; their 4-year-old daughter; and their 1-year-old son.

"Me and my husband had the fillings," Ghada Abdalla of Storrs said as she left the center in the late morning holding her son and grabbing for the hand of her daughter, who was toddling around, "and they had the cleaning."

She's had a toothache for months and, unable to afford dental care, she was planning on pulling the tormenting tooth, Abdalla explained. But fortunately, she said, she heard about the 7th Annual Connecticut Mission of Mercy Free Dental Clinic (CTMOM).

"It's amazing," she said, "People here are so nice."
www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-dental-clinic-20140425,0,7780529.story

[Chan790]

1. It's nice to see this event go so well..

but I wonder how many of those people knew that they can walk into the ER on weekends at John Dempsey UConn MC for dental emergencies and get treated regardless of ability to pay?

http://sdm.uchc.edu/patients/emergency.html

My brother went Saturday for an abscessed cracked tooth and was scheduled for an extraction today. He has HUSKY (Medicaid) so he's insured, but even if he wasn't, he'd have been treated. They wouldn't sedate him though and was only given ibuprofen for palliative care. For a free/cheap extraction, I can handle that along with having my dentistry done by a resident or intern. They gave him grief for not coming in sooner...if he'd gone in January when it first started to bother him rather than waiting for the tooth to abscess and break, he could have gotten it filled.

I may go next weekend I have free. I need 2 root canals and am still, alas, unemployed.

[NutmegYankee]

2. I certainly wasn't aware of that.

Our dental care system is completely broken. If one wants to determine your social class, all that must be done is to see if you are missing any teeth.