This past February, our local Paraguay Team conducted outreaches in various cities surrounding Asunción.
A total of 180 women were treated in cities such as Asuncion, Luque and Ñemby, and over 500 families also received oral hygiene education.
In Caapucú, one of the cities where the Team held an outreach, there is a public hospital that serves low-income individuals, but it suffers greatly due to a lack of staff members. While there is also a dental wing at the hospital, it is only open twice a week and is able to serve just 10 patients a day. After seeing this, our Team knew they had to do something to meet the needs of the community.
In the past few months, our Team has also been working diligently to recruit dentists to provide pro-bono work to those in need on a more regular basis. They were able to identify 18 local dentists who agreed to open up their clinics and provide pro-bono work once a week! Our Team will continue to conduct pre-screenings for patients and will then refer them to these doctors’ clinics.
