The Sunday Clinic
By Aiyaan Abzal
My name is Aiyaan Abzal and I am currently a final year Bachelor of Dental Surgery student at the University of Otago. I am also the current President of the New Zealand Dental Students' Association and a member of the Sunday Clinic Committee. This committee is a branch of the NZ Community Oral Health Outreach Association (NZ COHOA), an official affiliation of the Faculty of Dentistry.
The Sunday Clinic is a series of free dental clinics which are planned to be held on six Sundays between August and December at the University of Otago Faculty of Dentistry, in Dunedin. The clinics are staffed and run by volunteer dentists and supervised by fourth and final year dental students, however this year we aim to allow final year Oral Health students to also treat patients.
Sunday Clinic first launched in 2019 through the vision of Jamie Marra who is currently a Dunedin Dental House Surgeon and Dentist Dr. Haneen Alayan. 60 patients were treated at the Sunday Clinic and it was a major success with media coverage highlighting the significance of this initiative. It was quite remarkable to me looking back as a third year student to now to be in a position where I can work with Jamie and the committee in order to organise Sunday Clinic this year and make it a success once again.
Our goal is to highlight not only the inequity present within our oral health funding scheme but also that there is a large demand for dental treatment in our communities. Sunday Clinic is not simply about screening patients who need treatment and giving it to them for free. We will incorporate a compressive pathway into our care which means that patients will be educated and stabilised. The goal is then to have these patients integrated to an existing oral health system so that they can continue to maintain their oral health.
Treating disease regarding oral halth is often multi-faceted and the treatment we provide in the chair often isn't enough to address the true case of why the disease progresses in a patient. Allowing us to control the disease in a patient and then educate them and influence a change in attitude surrounding oral health is our aim. If we can eliminate the initial financial barrier in order to get patients back on track then we have achieved our goal.
From left to right: Jamie Marra, Bomi Aum, Lawanya Rathninde, Maisie Stone, Aiyaan Abzal, William Wallace
The MAS Here for Good Scholarship presented to us makes a huge difference towards the operational costs of Sunday Clinic. Our operation only involves costs for operations and materials. This is as all other staff and students involved including dentists, students, and sterilisation staff are all on a volunteer basis. Therefore, the support from the MAS Here for Good Scholarship allows us to cover primary costs associated with sourcing dental materials for treatment. I am very proud of the Faculty of Dentistry and the students as when I enquired to gauge interest to help, I was astounded at the volume of the response.
Volunteering and taking the effort to ensure this operation exists is at the very core of us as young leaders within the dental profession. As dental students we understand that the current oral health funding scheme does not favour those who require it the most such as patients wo are from low SES backgrounds. These patients are often episodic attenders meaning that they only come in when there is a problem. The issue with the nature of caries (decay) is that it is irreversible and therefore when these patients present to the clinic it is often too late.
As students in the modern age of dentistry we look towards preventing disease occurring in the first place. Changing the state of someones oral health can have such an impact on their confidence and function. The simple ability to smile or eat properly is often taken for granted and being able to be in a position where we may be able to make a huge difference for free we are very lucky.
Patients last time quoted after Sunday Clinic, "it's changed my life" and "I never used to smile but I am much more confident now". We often forget that good oral health means good overall health. Our team looks forward to organising the Sunday Clinic and making a difference to many more lives as much as we can.
We are very thankful for the support we have received from MAS and look forward to presenting the positive outcomes of Sunday Clinic this year, and highlighting the contribution of the MAS Here for Good Scholarship.
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