Dentaid Equipment Programme Independent Evaluation 2007 

At the beginning of 2007, Dentaid invited Dental Public Health experts from Queen Mary's University, London, to independently examine the charity's equipment operation. Their findings are now available below:-
 
Dentaid Equipment Programme Evaluation 2007

We are very grateful to Dr Nanjappa and Professor Croucher for this most interesting and helpful study.
 
The provision of donated western dental equipment will always be a controversial subject. Since Dentaid began in 1996, as resources have allowed the employment of specialist and trained staff and through experience gained over the years, the charity has strived to improve its equipment operation to what it believes today is a highly professional service. Nevertheless, we acknowledge that the provision of donated dental equipment in isolation, even to the standard to which Dentaid aspires, has potential sustainability challenges and a limited effect upon overall oral health care provision in middle and low income countries. More seriously, when done badly, donated equipment can actually have a detrimental effect on morale of indigenous dental services and waste pressure financial resources. Dentaid's staff have regularly witnessed the frustrations and consequences of poorly planned donations of inappropriate dental equipment to charitable projects, usually by well meaning but inexperienced individuals and organisations. 
 

 68 broken & inappropriate dental units "dumped" on a hospital in Uganda, September, 2006

Dentaid was set up to combat this and the results of this study show that Dentaid's equipment donation operation is having some beneficial impact upon empowering partner organisations to provide dental clinical services to their communities. There always remain areas and processes for improvement, particularly in the areas of ongoing support and monitoring and this independent evaluation is a vital tool in this process. We will be examining its recommendations (implications) very carefully over the coming months.
 
Encouragingly, a number of the recommendations are issues we had already identified and have been working hard to address over the last couple of years.
 
Since 2006, a step forward for Dentaid has been the implementation of dental engineer training programmes, to help improve the longevity of the equipment and encourage self-reliance. In the last year, Dentaid has held two residential training programmes in Cameroon and Uganda for 30 hospital engineers from Dentaid supplied clinics in Uganda, Cameroon, Burundi and Rwanda, which were well received, and new and improved relationships and channels of communication have been established between Dentaid and recipient clinics and the engineers themselves. It is hoped that similar programmes will be held in other countries and regions in the years ahead.
 

 Graduates of Dentaid Engineer Training Course in Cameroon, 2007
 

In addition, in 2007, Dentaid redesigned this website to now include free downloadable training resources and information for dental NGOs and individuals, particularly in the areas of Primary Health Care approaches, Basic Package of Oral Care (including case studies of its implementation) and other areas. We hope to contact all our past projects in the coming months to make them aware of these resources and the various other services Dentaid can now offer.  
 

New website provides a range of training and information resources
 

However, the most important step forward has been Dentaid's adoption of three additional strategic priorities (oral health promotion, capacity building and advocacy), alongside the original strategy of providing appropriate physical resources, as the central columns of Dentaid's work. This now ensures that Dentaid is able to provide a wide range of services and skills in order to promote a more "joined-up" approach and ensure that the most appropriate and effective services can now be offered and provided to partner projects around the world.