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Saturday, February 11, 2017

Dental Clinic Upgrade

Samaritan's Purse/World Medical Mission has been a huge supporter of Kudjip Nazarene Hospital.  They are our main source of volunteer doctors coming and serving with us, and have supplied us with 2 family practice doctors, 1 surgeon and 1 dentist through their Post Residency Program, with another surgeon and FP doctor coming in 2017 to join us as well.  Outside of doctors, they have been big supporters of providing equipment to us to help us run more effectively.  Not only have they helped out with surgery equipment, enabling us to have better anesthesia machines, lights, instruments and more, but they have also been a huge help to our dental clinic.
2 years ago our dental clinic opened with a mismatch of equipment that worked, but not without much effort on Sheena, our dentist's part.  Instruments and equipment broke regularly, supplies were hard to find and despite all of that Sheena has been able to care for 100s of patients in these past 2 years. 

Now thanks to the generosity of SP/WMM we have a new state of the art dental clinic.  Sheena Li is a dentist, who has been serving with us for almost 2 years now.  She has been able to transform dental care in the Highlands of PNG just by being here and caring for the patients, in a Christ honoring way.  Patients from all over the Highlands and beyond come to Kudjip to get dental care, the word has gotten out and they are coming. 

The work is too much for Sheena to do on her own, and so over the past 2 years she has been training her assistants, Emelda and Clara, to do assisting, cleanings, making the false teeth, taking Xrays and more.  It has been great to watch these women grow in their dental skills and work together to serve the patients who come. 

Sheena is going to be heading out on Home Assignment come June and we are looking for someone to help fill her void.  We are seeking PNG dentists for Sheena to start training, but we also need some experienced dentists to come and help oversee the dental clinic while she is gone.  If anyone is interested, please email our volunteer coordinator - Dr. Katherine Radcliffe at kudjipvolunteers@gmail.com.