TRR photo by Tom Kane Dr. David Drew and dental hygienist Ivette Acosta provide mobile dental care to a student at Sullivan West at Jeffersonville. (Click for larger image)

PRASAD: reaching children with mobile dental care

By TOM KANE

SOUTH FALLSBURG — When Dr. David Drew, a dentist and Fallsburg native, returned home from the west, he jumped at the chance to provide dental care for needy children in Sullivan County.

Drew, who was working on a Indian reservation providing dental care to the Crow Nation, is part of a unique free program that goes into local elementary schools, promoting healthy dental care to children who may not ordinarily have such a service.

For a number of years, when Dyan Campbell was head of Sullivan County Public Nursing, she tried to obtain free dental coverage for needy children. She was not successful. “It was simply too much for the county to take on at a time of deep cut backs,” she said.

Upon retirement, Campbell turned to the PRASAD project to fill the need.

PRASAD, an international charitable organization whose aim is to uplift the lives of children, families and communities in need, liked the idea and decided to fund the program.

The organization, located on Brickman Road near South Fallsburg, was begun by the SYDA Foundation but is a non-profit organization with its own organizational structure. Campbell is national director of the program, which has another site in California.

The PRASAD Children’s Dental Health Program is comprised of four parts.

The first is a dental health education project whereby trained volunteers go into schools and hold classes in dental hygiene.

Then, all children at the elementary level, with parental permission, are provided with a flouride mouthrinse and weekly fluoride tablets.

Next, an oral health screening is offered at regular intervals to elementary school children to assess the need for restorative care.

Finally, comprehensive preventive and restorative care is provided in a fully staffed mobile dental clinic for children in need who meet financial eligibility requirements. Drew, along with dental hygienists Judy Pavase and Ivette Acosta (who speaks English and Spanish), staff the mobile unit.

Last year, the health education program reached about 4,600 students in 17 schools in Sullivan County, and the flouride program reached about 3,000. The mobile unit made 2,000 visits to elementary school children in the area last year. (Sometimes one child required four or five visits.) The group also offers the program to Head Start children and recipients of the WIC program, a nutrition program for needy families.

“It’s extremely important for children to have healthy teeth because it avoids other ailments that come from bad teeth,” Campbell said. “We’re preventing a lot more than just cavities.”