Back in 2006 Dentaid undertook its first overseas training for Hospital maintenance personnel from all over
Uganda and
Rwanda. Dentaid set out a 2-week training programme to look at repairing and maintaining all the equipment it had previously supplied to these countries. The training course was held at the Mildmay centre in
Kampala
Uganda. Chris and Polly Barton were instrumental in this 2006 training course and last March we had an email for Chris on his return from
Uganda. He reported that the dental projects supported earlier could really benefit from some TLC and some more personnel being trained in the maintenance of equipment.
Dentaid put an appeal out ...... This was readily taken up by Dr Clive Power, a soon to be a retiring dentist, who funded the project and joined Dentaid's engineer in the trip. The aim was to repair and maintain as much equipment as possible whilst delivering key training in its maintenance.
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The trip would take them to 11 surgeries in 7 hospitals all the way across
Uganda and the length of
Rwanda. In total over 1000kms were covered by road and much of it on bumpy, pot hole filled dirt tracks. It was definitely an adventure!
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When the team picked up the vehicle it had no windscreens or brakes, but after a quick refurbishment they were ready to go. Some of the equipment seen at the surgeries was 10-15 years old but Dave Effamy, Dentaid's Senior Engineer, was happy to see that most of it was suffering from only minor faults.
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There was the occasional surprise however – In one chair there was a hornets nest! |
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The average amount of work that was being conducted by surgeries was about 400 people per month which really showed the value of Dentaid's work. In one day Dave and Clive repaired a compressor that hadn’t worked properly in 3 years, vastly improving the work that could be conducted by the surgery.
In total six engineers, eight dentists and three assistants were trained in the maintenance of equipment. The significant outcome of this trip was the evident need to train the dentists/assistants in the very basic day to day equipment maintenance, as access to engineers was sometimes limited.
Dave and Clive had a great time and saw a huge need whilst out in
Uganda. Click here for personal feedback from Clive on his work with Dentaid
