VMS members, from left, Dr Nurulain Mukadam, Dr Janus Herbst, Dr Lesley Johnson and dental assistant Evermore Mutiswa attend to a patient during the dental clinic.
A non-profit company held a dental clinic in Rondebosch East for intellectually disabled children on Sunday.
The Vision Medical Suite (VMS) has offices in Belgravia and Parkwood and has been around for 24 years. It provides free medical, dental and psychological care for the most vulnerable.
VMS was founded by dentist Dr Yusuf da Costa, who ran a dental practice in Parkwood and wanted to give back to the poor community. It expanded to include a medical division, run by Dr Nasreen Allie, and a psychology division, run by Habib Kagee.
About 50 children, including some from the Woodside Special Care Centre, took advantage of the free dental treatment, including sedation for some procedures, at the Rondebosch East Primary School
VMS chairman Hashiem da Costa said patients came for all dental treatments: everything from a polish to root canal and tooth extraction.
“We are aware that many of the intellectually challenged children are anxious and may not be able to keep still, and we need to sedate them, in order for us to treat them,” he said.
“When the patient is sedated, it gives an opportunity for the dentists to examine their whole mouth so we can look at what kind of help they need.”
A full team of health professionals volunteered their time and skills to help the VMS clinics, said Mr Da Costa. At the dental sedation clinic, there were dentists, medical doctors, cardiologists, anaesthesiologists, nurses, paramedics, counsellors and even lawyers who helped the families sign consent forms for the procedures.
“We run these dental sedation clinics on a monthly basis and we have our health-care professionals coming from Pretoria, Gqeberha and Durban.”
Woodside Special Care Centre manager Melanie Brand said VMS treated the residents with dignity.
“We value the commitment and dedication offered by the professionals within the VMS partnership,” she said.
Reverend Tobias Mutale, from St Chad’s Anglican Church in Table View, brought his 12-year-old daughter to the dental clinic to have teeth extracted. He said his daughter had autism and did not speak.
“They made us feel comfortable, and we did not have to wait long to be assisted,” he said.
Mr Da Costa said it cost R7000 to treat each patient and the organisation depended on support from private donors and health-care professionals.
“If anyone can support our organisation by providing a debit order of R150 per month, it will help us in continuing our work in helping the patients,” he said.
Visit vmscharity.org.za or call Mr Da Costa at 081 766 2874 for more information.