Ali’s bit

For such a small building quite a lot was happening over those two weeks in the clinic in Nagado. Down at the dental end we were rarely aware of what was happening with the doctors and nurses, so we thought it would be helpful for us to each write a few words about our own experiences.

The first thing for me to say is how impressed I was with the dental team. There are many dentists and dental nurses out there of varying skill levels, ethics, personalities, experience and demeanours so I was almost preparing myself to have to compromise in order to get along with my colleagues. We dentists are used to sitting in a small room with a nurse treating numerous patients on our own each day. We make almost all of the decisions for ourselves without anyone looking over our shoulder. So it is a rather alien environment to be in an open room working alongside relative strangers and with the whole world (or so it feels) able to see what we’re doing.

But Chris, Brent and Allyson were not only professional and capable dentists, they were extremely easy to talk to and very supportive. Chris’ wife Angela, despite having no dental nurse training, worked superbly alongside him and I had the pleasure of teaming up with Kaye, an experienced dental therapist who was quick to turn her skills to nursing. When any one individual was feeling the strain the others seemed to lift the mood and encouraged them to rest, something we don’t often hear in general practice!

As for the Fijians themselves, they made a potentially difficult job much easier by being kind, friendly and genuinely appreciative of our visit to their village. Many of them were suffering from poor dental health for a variety of reasons: lack of access to fluoride toothpaste, overconsumption of sugary foods and particularly drinks, chewing on sugarcane (which many believe is good for your teeth *cringe*) and poor dental education in general. It wasn’t unusual to see a patient who required ten or more extractions, but with a queue of patients already exceeding capacity every single day we had to choose our battles. We would remove the painful and problematic ones but many teeth were left that would have been ideally removed. The number of fillings done was relatively few even though, again, there were many more needed.  In total we extracted 622 teeth over the outreach and filled about 120 more, and that was only the tip of the iceberg.

Unlike most patients I have treated in my time our patients in Nagado were keen to get to see us as they knew this was an extremely rare opportunity for them to have their dental problems dealt with. Overall they were looking forward to having their teeth removed. But what struck me above them was their resilience. I am used to patients tensing up or even making a minor drama at the suggestion of having an injection, even though it is often completely unwarranted. But even young kids in the village were assured and calm during the anaesthesia and extractions. With a few minor exceptions our patients took it all in their stride and still had the consideration to say ‘thank you’ afterwards. Sorry to say it, but they put our culture to shame.

What is more, they continually touched us with their kindness by bringing food to our house in the evenings. Most Fijians don’t have much in the way of money to offer as they mostly live off the land, so instead they donated various meats, breads, fruits and vegetables over our stay. They made no small show of their appreciation and even since we returned to Lautoka we haven’t been forgotten. Just two days ago a man that Dani had treated spotted us in the market and spoke to us. We were hoping to buy some cassava (a large root not dissimilar to potato) and he had some to sell, but when we offered him money he refused to take anything for it. He was sacrificing some of his earnings that day to make a statement of thanks to us.

Personally I still found it quite exhausting, and inconveniences such as a lack of running water in the toilets, cold showers, some rather sleepless nights due to heat, crowing cockerels and snoring amongst other things compounded the tiredness. But once again the comradery helped to keep spirits up. We would meet every morning for worship to get us off to a good start. And while the clinics were going I could hear others praying with the Fijians or the waiting crowds of patients singing along to God with one of our team on guitar. It brought an element to our work that is painfully absent from work in general practice – faith.

Where it is not only uncommon but positively discouraged for us to talk about such things in our work in the UK the Fijians openly welcome discussion about God and happily accept prayer. One of the local teams visits the hospital twice every week to do nothing other than talk and pray with the patients, and when we accompanied them one morning there wasn’t a single person who wasn’t pleased to receive us. I’m still to understand why even many Christians in the UK are so reluctant to talk openly about faith. Secular society is supposed to mean we are free to discuss all aspects of life without fear of condemnation and yet so many of us are afraid we will offend or draw criticism that we rarely step out of our politically correct mindset. Just saying.

But, despite the challenges, the outreach has made many of my prior concerns evaporate. It has been really evident over the fortnight that when God wants something to happen, it happens. Where there were bumps in the road people took them in their stride, but far more obvious is how God’s work continued unabated regardless of the many things that could have gone wrong and it felt like nothing could have stopped that. The balance of backgrounds, personalities, professional experience and various other qualities formed a team that would have been hard to match if the members had been cherry-picked by hand. Well, by a human hand anyway…