Our friend, Edward Doff, tells us about his experience with the Trudi Birger Dental clinic in Israel. A dental clinic providing free treatment for those in need.
Foundation
In 1947, a teenager disembarked from a boat in Haifa. Trudi Birger, having somehow survived the horrors of Stutthof concentration camp, had arrived in Israel to build a new life - and to make a difference. In her memoir, Trudi writes, ‘The lesson I personally have drawn from the suffering that my family and I have endured is that we must work selflessly to help others.’
One of her projects was to help poor immigrants, who often had gross social and educational problems. During her work with needy children, she had become aware that looking after their teeth was entirely beyond their means and that they had all the wrong habits. She could also identify with these children, having had teeth knocked out by the Nazis. Neither the Ministry of Health nor the country’s health insurance had enough funds to provide dental care, so she decided she would find a way to provide them with the best dentistry, free of charge.
In 1980, without any resources, except for her powerful and influential character and assistance from personal friends, she founded DVI - Dental Volunteers for Israel – a not-for-profit organisation, to provide comprehensive dental care and oral health education to impoverished children without charge. She acquired premises in Jerusalem, persuaded a French dental supplier to donate an initial twenty tons of equipment for the new clinic, and talked Zim, the shipping company, into transporting it all for free!
After a life full of giving to others, Trudi Birger died in 2002 on her 75th birthday, having being made an Honorary Member of the Alpha Omega International Dental Fraternity amongst many other honours. In 2009, President Shimon Peres presented the clinic - by then renamed in her honour - with the President's Award for Volunteerism, the highest recognition an organization can receive for its services to the community.
DVI today
The founding principles of DVI, making it a unique set-up in the country were and still are -
- treatment is provided to the neediest families regardless of their religious or ethnic origin
- all treatment is totally free
- the city’s welfare services refer all the patients
- children and parents participate in a dental hygiene preventive health care programme; they are given a toothbrush and toothpaste, for some their first ever
- there is a regular six-month recall programme
- volunteer dentists, both Jewish and non-Jewish, from many countries are the mainstay of the clinic’s staff.
DVI’s remit has recently expanded to work with a not-for-profit shelter for the homeless, and the clinic has started to accept referrals from the Municipality’s at-risk youth program, extending the age range up to 26. In 2016, DVI completed a renovation to allow improved access by wheelchair bound patients. Both of these steps mean more diversity of care and a need to respond to more wide ranging clinical needs.
The general dental practitioners and specialists volunteering include some well known names in endodontics and restorative dentistry from all around the world, working with a small permanent professional staff, including Paedodontic Specialists and a Professor from Hadassah School of Dental Medicine. There are four chairs in the main clinic space plus one for the resident and one for the hygienist. The preventive unit is in an adjoining building across a small, sunny courtyard.
DVI has three free-of-charge apartments for the use of the dentists and their families. The clinic starts early and work stops at 1.00 pm (although the staff stay later) when the volunteers become regular tourists, enjoying the sights of Jerusalem and seeing the country.
My experience of DVI
Having heard of the clinic some years before at a postgraduate course held by the Alpha Omega Dental Fraternity, I went to visit, was impressed, and then in 2013 went for the first time as a volunteer. Since selling my own practice, I have been about twice each year and am grateful for the chance literally to keep my hand in, while being able to give something back. It is an opportunity to be free of the more ridiculous rules and regulations of the NHS, and practice dentistry as I was taught.
The Clinical Director examines each patient and formulates a treatment plan, aided by digital intraoral and panoramic radiographs, the dental records being computerised. There is no time pressure so each patient has as long as they need with the ability to use whatever material is best for that individual. Rubber dam is used so routinely for restorations that the nurses are better at applying it than most of the dentists!
I have met dentists from every continent there and they are all made welcome. The nurses are multi-lingual, patient, intuitive and long serving. They provide stability in spite of the dentists changing so often, and the patients recognise them and call the nurses by their first name.
The Free Dentures Project
Last year, thanks to sponsorship, DVI expanded its activities to include a Free Dentures Project, for needy elderly and Holocaust Survivors, recruiting a prosthodontic specialist with extensive experience in geriatric dentistry to oversee the work and ensure that patients receive the best treatment and continuity of care. In 2016 the Municipality found that there are 23,000 Holocaust Survivors living in Jerusalem, 7,000 needy in some way and receiving assistance from Welfare Services.
Although well over half of the patients accepted into the project are indeed Survivors, some of the needy elderly referred for treatment are Arab. Many of the patients appear almost non-verbal at the first appointment. If they can communicate at all, it is only with a son or daughter present, with the patient whispering in their ear.
For example, Sarah Golzorion, 80, speaks only Persian, so her son came to translate for her. She had dentures made 22 years ago, and though they had needed replacing for a very long time, she could not afford them. They were broken and caused her constant pain, so, for many years, she only wore them for eating. She came to the clinic with no teeth in and did not speak at all. Now, she has a new set of dentures and is friendly with everyone!
Funding
The clinic works to high standards using state of the art materials and equipment, whenever possible secured by donation from dental suppliers throughout the world - visiting endodontists have operating microscopes at their disposal. The clinic is incredibly lucky to have Friends of DVI all over the world and they do a wonderful job raising the profile of Trudi Birger’s brainchild and helping recruit volunteers and secure the donations of equipment and sundries without which the clinic could not operate.
Dental care is expensive to provide and DVI relies entirely on donations. Whenever I volunteer, I try to get a UK dental company to provide some free materials and it all gets packed in among the sandals and T-shirts, to the delight of the airline check-in staff!
I was there in June and plan to return at least once more before the end of the year. People seem to find it amusing that the only time I go to work is when I’m on holiday! There is always a little party for the volunteers at the end of the week when they hand out certificates and DVI badges. They thank the volunteers for coming - but it really should be the other way around!
An enormous Thank You to Dental Sky for their donation of alginate towards the Free Dentures Project, given so willingly and immediately. Michelle Levine, Development & International Relations Director at DVI, wrote to Dental Sky that ‘Support from friends like you is what enables us to keep our doors open to needy youth and now elderly, regardless of race or religion, and needy Holocaust Survivors.’
The Trudi Birger Clinic welcomes volunteer dentists from the UK. The application process is easy and can be done on-line at https://dental-dvi.org.il/
Sponsoring a project or new equipment is just as easy, as is making an individual donation. The links are all on the website https://dental-dvi.org.il/.
