HEALTHY SMILES
Local dentist helps people in Peru
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. » When he came across the e-mail from his employer, Dr. Rolando Reyes knew he wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to help people.
Reyes has been a dentist at the Aspen Dental office in Wilton for five years now. The company routinely sends volunteers to various places to provide much needed services. The location this time was in Peru, high in the Andes Mountains in the village of Quiquijana.
Reyes, along with dentists from Massachusetts, Ohio, Tennessee and Arizona, spent a week in Peru at the end of June helping more than 500 patients, some of whom had never been to a dentist.
The community had a great need; it has a small population, with an average income of five dollars per day. There is only one dentist per 10,000 Peruvians, leaving the majority without access to any
preventative or restorative care.
The patients were people of all ages.
“We saw infections, we saw patients in pain, so basically you have to first make them understand why you’re there, why you’re helping them . ... Here, I can talk about a cleaning, a filling and an extraction, and it’s understood,” said Reyes. “For them, first there was a language barrier; even though I speak Spanish, they speak Quechua over there, so in that community the Spanish language wasn’t strong.”
The language and culture barrier was evident for Reyes and the rest of the staff there, but it wasn’t the only adjustment that needed to be made.
“Besides that — facilities. We’re using plastic chairs to do extractions. It’s uncomfortable. Buckets for salvia. It’s not like what we have here: Nice chair with suction and assistants, and all of the tools that I need,” said Reyes. “There you have to do your best with the little things that you have, and I think that’s one of the big things about this type of trip.” Even though Reyes had never met the other dentists prior to the trip, he felt they did a great job of working together. “We communicated really well. The assistants were on point.” said Reyes. “It looked like we [had been] working together for years and years.”
Reyes had plenty of memories and stories following appointment after appointment, but one story in particular stuck with him nearly two months after the trip.
“I had two little kids — maybe [ages] five and seven — and they have big cavities. One of them was in pain, so I taught the older one what we were doing. I explained everything.
We were doing extractions, which is a scary procedure for everyone,” said Reyes. “I talked to her about, ‘OK, this is what you’re expecting,’ and she behaved great. And after that I went to the little one, and she knew what to expect, so she was more comfortable and they were very helpful. They were great.
That was the part I remember the most.”
Reyes plans on making more trips to places that need help. “You feel good when you’re doing it. I think I need to do it. I feel like it’s a part of me. I just want to help,” Reyes said.
“A lot of things that you can do is just something I do every single day for people who really need it, and they are actually very grateful. It makes you feel good.”