Hundreds of underserved people received free dental services at the Texas Mission of Mercy Mobile Dental Clinic Friday at Texas High School Gymnasium. The clinic, which is a partnership between CHRISTUS St. Michael Health System and the Texas Dental Association Smiles Foundation, continues through today.
There were about 25 dentists and dental assistants and another 150 volunteers from the community working together to make the clinic happen. Services provided include dental cleanings, fillings and extractions.
Approximately 100 patients had been prescreened a few weeks ago so as soon as dentists were set up Friday morning they began seeing those patients.
Others who weren't prescreened started lining up in front of the school at 11 p.m. Thursday night. Organizers don't expect to have any appointments available on Saturday.
This is the fourth time St. Michael has hosted the mobile dental clinic. Other clinics were held in 2011, 2013 and 2015.
Dental problems can lead to a decline in general health if they aren't treated.
"That's the purpose of this event. We know that often dental issues can become overall health issues," said Francine Francis director of marketing/communications for St. Michael. "We see people come to our emergency department with adverse health issues due to a dental problem."
Francis said she expected between 450 to 500 people to be served in this two-day span.
Dr. Michael Giesler, a dentist from Atlanta, Texas, participated in the event with his two sons who are also dentists.
"We do about four missions a year. I was drawn to doing missions in the 80s. I started going to Central America and providing dental work but I realized we have a lot of mission work right here," Giesler said. "We're drawn to doing this because that's what our faith tells us to do. It's estimated there are 20 to 30 percent of the population here who don't have the insurance or the means to go to the dentist so this is our way of giving back and helping."
Dental issues can cause people a lot of suffering and lead to extremely serious health problems.
"Toothaches are painful because the nerves are so close to the brain that the signal doesn't have far to travel," Giesler said. "Two or three years ago I was told about four deaths in Texarkana that were caused by dental infections that had abscessed and gone to the brain. Most dental infections will swell up and hurt but in a small percentage of cases they can go to the brain or the blood and cause sepsis or death."
Research is still being done on how dental health affects a person's overall health.
"Dental disease is known to contribute to low birth weight, pneumonia. There is a possible correlation to heart disease and some people also think it might correlate with breast cancer," Giesler said.
Dr. Larry Spradley, oral surgeon and chairman of the Texas Dental Association Smiles Foundation which helps put the mobile event on, said they do about four events a year.
"What's important about what we do is we team up with the community and together we're able to pull something like this together. CHRISTUS St. Michael has helped with this event every time we've been here. They're the ones that get it going," Spradley said.
St. Michael spends between $40,000 and $45,000 to bring to sponsor the mobile clinic. That money is used to ship the equipment to the area and set it up. All dental professionals and other volunteers work for free.
"For St. Michael Health System this event really is consistent with our vision to partner with individuals and groups to really improve the health of the community," said Jason Rounds, St. Michael CEO/president. "Good dental care is really key to good health care."