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Urgent appeal – Medical Santo needs help

Urgent-appeal-–-Medical-Santo-needs-help

Medical Santo is a Christian, not-for-profit medical aid organisation who provide primary health services to the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu. Their main focus is to coordinate medical volunteers who mentor, educate and provide health services in the area and they desperately need your help.

We recently supported their June 2019 trip by providing sterile single-use dental instruments. In doing so we got the chance to hear from Dr Sue Hosn who volunteered with the team. She sheds light on their experience and the assistance they so urgently need.

“This centre is run solely by medical and dental volunteers. With a population of 16,000 people and no dentist for 6 months, the demand was quite overwhelming. The people are so desperate and tend to live with dental pain waiting for a volunteering dentist.

The clinic has a small steriliser which was not enough to keep up with the dental needs. Without the vital instruments you donated, we wouldn’t have been able to cope with the demand and sterilisation. Every day I’d see about 20 people and perform over 25 extractions as well as some conservative work.

Root canal treatments were not done except for tourists or expats that needed relief of pain. There is so much urgent work needed. I had a 26-year-old female that required 15 extractions and 6 large carious lesions. Then an eight-year-old that had 4 extractions and 7 fillings… Most of the work carried out were extractions and fillings.

Urgent appeal – Medical Santo needs help2

It was fulfilling, rewarding and the people were so grateful and thankful. It would be great if more dentists volunteer and help these desperate people. It’s also a great destination for sightseeing, you can help and at the same time enjoy the untouched beauty of places like The Blue Hole, Champagne beach, Million dollar point etc.

If dentists volunteer even for a week, it will make such a big difference to these underprivileged people. I left and they don’t know when another dentist will arrive. Once again thank you for your kind donations that facilitated my work.”

Based in the town of Luganville on the island of Espiritu Santo, Medical Santo are only a one hour flight north of the capital Port Vila. Air Vanuatu flies direct from Brisbane on Tuesday mornings with a return flight on Sunday evenings, making it convenient for volunteers who can only stay for a short time. Other flights come from Sydney and New Zealand.

To effectively serve the people of Vanuatu Medical Santo relies on volunteers. Assistance is needed from all types of medical professions and trips can be short or long term depending on your availability. If you or someone you know would like to lend a hand and benefit the lives of those in desperate need, you can contact the team directly at volunteers@medicalsanto.com.

Check out their amazing work on Facebook here.

If you would like to find out more about the charities and volunteer groups we work with, you can view these on our Charities page.