Dental Work and Dr Jim Birong

 Dr. Jim Birong's Team Aids Dental Health in Pignon!

 Below is Dr. Birong's account of many years of service.

"Dr Guy asked me to teach modern dentistry so I began teaching in 1997.

After teaching for 3 years I went down and Dr. Guy asked me to review the finances of the clinic since they were loosing money. Upon reviewing the dental records I found they were extracting 300 teeth and filling only 20 teeth  so I asked Dr. Petite why. He said it was economic. It cost $10 to fill a tooth and$2 to extract a tooth so everyone choose to extract. It was at this time that we decided to create an insurance fund to cover the school children.  We reduced the children filling fee to $5 and set up the insurance fund to pay $4 of the $5 so the children would pay $1 for a filling and $2 for an extraction. Today we are filling 300 teeth and extracting 20 teeth every month for the children in 20 schools. Dr. Wesley Joseph works just on children. Dr. Petite does adult patients. The children get check up, cleaning, and any filling work they need including root canals. So today because of the insurance fund, the children of Pignon are getting modern dental care and the dental clinic is running in the black."     

 Donations made to the dental clinic give new smiles to so many as well as provide dental visits to the school children. In 2012, 6,506 patients were seen. The number projected for 2013 is 7,307.                                                                       

Just recently the team made their annual trip to Pignon. This is what Dr. Birong said about their visit. 
            

"We did have a very productive trip to Pignon. We seated a couple more anterior bridges so we have a couple more beautiful smiles in Pignon .Our big push this trip was to refurbish the dental clinic and the dental lab. We painted the dental clinic inside and out put up new fluorescent lighting and replaced all the lower cabinets . We also replaced the lower cabinets in the dental lab. Many of the old cabinets had broken drawers which did not slide, making it difficult to get the right instrument. The new cabinets were donated by a dentist in Canton, Ohio and were specifically designed for a dental office with many smaller drawers which will make the instruments much more accessible."