Delivering smiles at sea
In the UK we often take easy access to dental care for granted. However, for some patients finding the opportunity to see the dentist is not so straightforward, especially those that work in challenging industries such as fishing.
Understanding this, in June 2018 with funding from Seafarers Hospital Society and in partnership with The Fishermen’s Mission and Healthy Cornwall, Smile Together took a mobile dental unit to harboursides across Cornwall and Brixham to provide dental care and health checks to fishermen and their families. Katie Rowe, Project Lead Dental Nurse for the initiative explains:
“We were inspired to start this initiative as many of the families and fishermen in the area were in need of dental care. In fact, 70% of the patients we treated during the initiative hadn’t seen a dentist in over 5 years! To make Smiles at Sea a reality my manager, Joy Callender, had arranged for us to borrow a mobile dental unit (MDU) from Community Dental Services in Bedfordshire for two weeks in June so that we could provide these people with the dental care they needed.