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l to r: Dalhousie University president, Dr. Deep Saini, dean of the Faculty of Dentistry, Dr. Ben Davis, director of the School of Dental Hygiene, Dr. Leigha Rock      Danny Abriel photos 

Dalhousie University president Dr. Deep Saini and his wife Rani arrived at the Faculty of Dentistry on a wet and windy evening at the end of March. The purpose of their visit was to see the Government Assisted Populations (GAP) Oral Health Clinic in action and meet some of the faculty members, volunteers, and students who dedicate their time to it.

Over the past 10 years, the GAP Clinic has grown and changed its name, but its central purpose has remained the same: to provide oral health care to new immigrants to Nova Scotia, many of whom have led difficult lives before arriving here and who would struggle to find care in Nova Scotia, mostly due to financial and language barriers.

Dr. and Mrs. Saini saw the clinic on a typical Monday evening. As dental hygiene and dentistry students dressed in scrubs and clinic jackets bent over patients in white, well-lit cubicles, instructors supervised and answered questions and language interpreters facilitated oral health care conversations between patients and the students treating them.

“What I saw at the clinic exceeded my most positive expectations,” Dr. Saini said after his tour. He was impressed by the facilities and equipment and the work of students, clinicians, and volunteers to treat “waves of refugees and new immigrants who had either never seen a dental professional or would simply not have the means to do it now.”

An exceptional experience for students
Prof. Heather Doucette, director of the GAP Clinic, explains that the clinic is currently treating a large number of Syrian refugees, many of whom have had some dental treatment in their home country, compared to many patients from African populations who have never had access to care and so suffer from “rampant decay”.

According to Doucette, a key component on the GAP clinic involves the students working with a language interpreter to provide care to patients whose primary language is not English.
Working this way provides students with knowledge and experience they can carry forward into their professional practice.

“My hope is that this experience will help to increase our students’ ability to treat these populations in a culturally competent manner after they have graduated.”

l to r: Susan Keating-Bekkers, Dr. Ben Davis, Dr. Deep Saini

Susan Keating-Bekkers: Alumna, faculty member, volunteer, and donor
Dr. Saini commended the “passionate involvement and generosity” of Susan Keating-Bekkers (DDH’91) which was “behind a lot of what we saw”.

A part-time faculty member for 20 years and now a volunteer in the GAP clinic, Keating-Bekkers became aware of both the extensive needs of the new immigrant and refugee populations and the difficulties the clinic had in obtaining consistent funding for treatment costs.

She initially created a fund to support dental hygiene care, but quickly saw that many patients also needed extractions and restorations. That was why she created a second fund to enable dental students to provide care in the clinic as well. The addition of dental students was “critical” she says in the provision of “much-needed dental procedures”.

As the number of immigrants and refugees has grown, “this continuously evolving clinic has improved the lives of hundreds of individuals who are new to our province,” she says.

Fulfilling a civic role
Close to 500 patients have received treatment through the GAP Clinic so far, with more than 260 dental hygiene students and over 160 dentistry students providing the care.

Like Keating-Bekkers, Doucette is aware that the constant evolution of the clinic creates new needs and they each continue to try to find new ways to extend the work of the GAP clinic, so that more patients receive more care.

“Over the past several years, Heather Doucette has been a driving force behind the GAP clinic,” says Keating-Bekkers.  “Through her leadership, she has worked with the Faculty to include the dentistry students, which has taken this clinic to a whole new level of oral health care.”

For Dr. Saini, the GAP clinic powerfully demonstrates how Dalhousie can fulfil its civic role within our community. “The multitude of outreach programs that our Faculty of Dentistry runs has stood out as exemplary. Our GAP Clinic is one of the leading examples among these.”