A typical dental clinic in a developing world country will be very basic.  Most dentists work simply with a chair, some forceps, maybe a water boiler and a bucket. Few have any working equipment and the only treatment they can normally provide is extractions. Working with such limited equipment is both difficult and terribly demoralising for the dentist. Sterilisation is inadequate or non-existent.

Many of these dentists have given up more lucrative careers in the cities where they trained to serve the needy people in the poorer areas. Hospitals and clinics have almost no resources for dental clinics and certainly securing a fully functioning dental surgery with everything the dentist would need is beyond the financial resources of most clinics. Consumables can be very difficult to obtain with the scarcity of basic materials being a constant source of frustration for the overstretched and under resourced dentist.

A certain amount of western dental equipment finds its way out to these dentists by well meaning non-dental charities. However even before it is sent the equipment is often broken, worn out or missing vital components. Without specialist packing the delicate dental equipment gets damaged whilst in transit, held up in customs due to wrong paperwork, and finally may be totally inappropriate on arrival. This is often worse than receiving nothing at all as valuable cash and time resources are wasted on shipping. More importantly, the recipient dentist's morale is destroyed when the promised gift ends up being of no help.