At the age of 86, Donathile Nyirabahire, a resident of Kageyo sector in Gicumbi District, has for long experienced a dental problem. The teeth in her mouth can be easily counted and of the few she has, three of them need to be extracted.

Nyirabahire says she has been having sleepless nights, and could not stay away when she heard about a free check-up in her area.

"People around here have to travel a long distance to look for a dentist. This sometimes makes us give up on dental care and we resort to traditional medicine, which is not very effective,” she says.

Basic Package of Oral Care, a project implemented by SOS Children Village Rwanda in partnership with Dental Health without Borders, an organisation based in Denmark, last week carried out free treatment for patients with dental problems in Nyamagabe, Gasabo and Gicumbi districts.

The project started in 2012, in Nyamagabe and was later scaled up to other districts. Dental Health without Borders carries out these activities twice every year.

The group, comprising nine dentists, has been in the country since July 3.

In Gicumbi, at Muhondo Health Centre, where their last outreach was, they were treating, extracting and filling teeth.

According to Beata Mukabahire of SOS Rwanda who also heads Basic Package of Oral Care, these services have been carried out in six schools in Gicumbi.

Basic package of Oral Care is working with school-going children to build a culture of oral hygiene, where they are taught how to brush their teeth and other oral related practices.

"We believe that when children are taught this at school, they can also carry the same practice at home which becomes easier for them to stick to the practices as they also pass the same information to their families,” she said.

Mukabahire said at school, children are encouraged to wash their hands first before brushing. This is because hand washing is a key measure in preventing diseases related to poor hygiene.

At Muhondo Health Centre, over 500 people were educated about oral hygiene and were treated during the first phase, and more numbers are expected to be educated during the second phase.

"First we are doing screening, and then giving education on oral health before we commence any treatment,” said Ida Maguuson, one of the dentists from Denmark.

She said at the end of the programme, they expect to come out with statistics of how many people have received treatment.

Major problems discovered

Maguuson said the main problem they are coming across is decaying carries. She said this is possibly brought about by not using tooth brushes, as well as not knowing what food is healthy for them.

She added that they had handled more than 200 school-going children and adults have teeth problem, and most of them are on the stage where extracting the teeth is the only solution.

"We have seen a lot of children leaking sweets; this is very harmful to their teeth. Our mission is not only to treat but also to provide information on how to embrace oral hygiene measures which is more important when it comes to halting these problems,” Maguuson said.

What to watch

Maguuson said mothers with young children need to be educated on how to ensure their children are not affected by dental problems, which normally begins at a tender age.

"For instance, if a child has already reached the stage where they are being given complimentary food, it’s not good for a mother to breastfeed them at night because there is a lot of sugar in the breast milk during that time,” she said

Maguuson explained that at this stage, the child starts developing milk teeth,thus when breastfed especially at night, the sugars from the breast milk can harm their teeth. She said the right time to breastfeed is during the day, adding that at night children should be given water and other foods.

She said when a child gets the first tooth, then just like adults, brushing them becomes necessary.

"This is to prevent early extraction of teeth in babies. Otherwise, when early extraction is done, the permanent teeth will be malpositioned which will lead to problems like difficulty in chewing,” Maguuson said.