The 19th no‑cost dental clinic at the Lee Pellon Event Center in Machias the week of April 13 served 690 patient visits, the most in years, said Eddie Rosenbaum, director of the global outreach and international engagements at NYU Dentistry. There were 600 patient visits last year.
The four‑day clinic is the result of a partnership between New York University College of Dentistry and Sunrise Opportunities’ Washington County Children’s Program (WCCP). For the last 15 years in April, the clinic has served the dental needs of the community. The spring clinic serves adults and children while the fall clinic serves children only.
“We’re coming here because there are so many barriers to access care, especially dental care in Washington County,” Rosenbaum said. There is a shortage of dentists, not every dentist accepts MaineCare, the state’s Medicaid program, and not everyone has insurance.
Getting an appointment to see a dentist can take six months to a year. “So you might make an appointment a year in advance, but maybe when that appointment comes that’s the high time for lobster fishing. Or that’s when you’re harvesting blueberries. Or that’s when you’re doing wreath-making,” he observed.
Other barriers are access to transportation, inability to take off work and seasonal income. Another factor is drug use and its negative toll on oral health and financial resources. “These are all competing barriers to access care, forcing families into tough decisions, especially if they have to pay out of pocket,” he said.
The clinic “is first-come, first-served, and for that reason we try to do something for everybody that comes in the door,” Rosenbaum said, noting, “We’re focusing on the most pressing health needs first.” The clinic performs exams, fillings, extractions, root canals and other procedures.
Pembroke resident Daniel McIninch has been coming to the clinic since the beginning. He said he’s had everything done, including two extractions. “This facility is needed here,” McIninch said, adding, “There should be more funding for it. Most people are broke, just to pay their bills and get the food they need. So this dentist school coming here for a week, or four days, and doing this is a blessing for Washington County.” He comes “because you can’t get into a dentist. The only place you can get into a dentist walk‑in is Lubec.”
NYU Dentistry would not be coming to Machias without local buy‑in and community coordination provided by Teresa Alley and Jen Wood of the Washington County Children’s Program. They are the longtime co‑hosts and local on‑the‑ground coordinators for the clinic. They initiated the partnership with NYU Dentistry in 2010 after seeing the dental needs of the local community while running the mobile children’s prevention program for Sunrise Opportunities. They know the patient population and spend months to plan and prepare for the clinics to help them run smoothly.
“They are the ones on the ground doing the work,” including helping to feed and house the NYU crew of 38 dental students and professionals, who typically drive up from New York on a Sunday in a bus with 1,500 pounds of equipment, Rosenbaum explained. They bring dental chairs, X‑rays, general supplies and silver portable cases housing the essentials for a mobile dentist.
The crew includes a “jack-of-all-trades” technician for any equipment that breaks. Rosenbaum sees every person playing a vital role in their success, adding, “We couldn’t do it without everyone.” The dental crew is composed of dental faculty, fellows, students and residents who specialize in pediatrics or root canals.
The school sees the clinics as valuable training for dental education. Because the school is based in New York, its students rarely see rural America. The Maine visit gives them “an understanding of the barriers keeping people from the dentist chair” and helps them “to become more empathetic providers in the future.”
Rosenbaum sees the positive difference it makes for people to have “comfortable and accessible dental care” with the same professional standards as clinics in New York City. “It’s about restoring people’s smile, which restores their confidence and faith in themselves.”
Including Machias, the global outreach program holds clinics in six locations: two in New York and one each in the Bahamas, Guatemala and Dominican Republic. NYU is the largest dental school in the country, graduating one out of 10 dentists in the U.S.
