Tyrick Makerson recalled Friday that his last trip to see a dentist was six months ago. He got a cavity filled, but he left the office that day with a lot more dental work left undone.
“I couldn’t really afford it at the time,” said Makerson, 31, who has been nursing an aching tooth in the intervening months, unable to get care without dental insurance.
Makerson was among about 90 people who lined up starting in the early morning outside Bullard Dentistry on Washington Road for a day of free dental care.
Dr. Jonathan Bullard, along with six other dentists from the Augusta area and other cities in Georgia and South Carolina, teamed up to provide the free dental care in conjunction with Dentistry from the Heart, a Florida nonprofit that promotes and helps organize such events in all 50 states and other
countries.
countries.
Makerson said he lost his health care coverage a few years ago when he left a job to start his own business building computers and activating cellphones. He was hoping to have his sore tooth extracted and get some relief after months of misery.
“This is something the community needs and I really approve of what they are doing here,” he said.
Bullard said he had volunteered his time at another Dentistry from the Heart event in Greene County a couple of years ago and has been planning since then to do his own.
“The team has been working on this for about four months, organizing and planning,” he said.
The event included managing parking, assessing patient needs and providing breakfast and lunch for those who waited hours to get a rare chance to sit in a dentist’s chair.
Amber Perez, one of Bullard’s assistants, said her husband, Julio, persuaded everyone at his place of work, Southeastern Restoration Group, to close for the day and volunteer.
Bullard said that when he arrived at his Martinez office at 5:30 a.m., 40 people were waiting to be registered.
Shelly Moment got in to see a dentist just after noon, after arriving at 6:30 a.m. to get a spot in line.
“When I got here this morning the place was full of cars and there was 15-20 people in line,” Moment said.
She hoped to get a filling that she had been putting off for months. Her last dental appointment had been more than a year ago, said Moment, who admitted she didn’t like having dental work done.
“I don’t even like going to my eye doctor,” she said. “I don’t like him fooling with my eyes.”
By the end of the day, Bullard said they had seen 90 patients, cleaned 29 sets of teeth, filled 24 cavities and performed 54 extractions. He said the total value for the work done that day was a little more than
$23,000.
$23,000.
The object was to provide basic dental care and maintenance to as many people as possible, he said.
“A lot of patients who get a filling still need quite a bit of additional work to be done, but we do as much as we can,” Bullard said.
Source:http://newstimes.augusta.com/news/2015-10-21/dozens-flock-to-free-dental-clinic-in-martinez
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