By Lincoln DePradine
In 2018, a gaggle of Canadian well being professionals visited the Caribbean to supply free dental care. Their providers have been for nationals of Grenada, which incorporates the Grenadine islands of Carriacou and Petite Martinique.
By the third journey in 2023, the group – referred to as Smiles Grenada, Carriacou and Petite Martinique (GCP) – found that Grenadians suffered from a well being situation prevalent amongst individuals of African descent within the Caribbean and different elements of the west; that’s, hypertension.
“Final yr, in Carriacou, we had a person whose blood stress was extraordinarily excessive and we suggested them to seek the advice of their medical physician and that individual ended up within the hospital. So, perhaps we saved their life; we don’t know,’’ Vanessa Alexis, founding-president of Smiles GCP stated final Saturday at an Ajax fundraising occasion of her group.
Annual fundraising is vital to the group to assist cowl airfare bills for the staff of volunteers, and in addition to buy tools they take with them on their Caribbean visits. And final Saturday on the “Smiles” fundraiser on the Ajax Recreation Centre, first pledge of $5,000, got here from the operator of the corporate, Canadawide Set up.
“He’s not from the Caribbean. He’s from Sri Lanka. He believes in our work and truly traveled to Grenada final yr. He wished to see the work what we’re doing,’’ stated Alexis.
Different pledges ranged from $20 to some giving tons of, and in addition contributions of as much as $2,000.00.
Gerry Hopkin, Grenada’s Toronto-based consul common to Canada, counseled Alexis and her volunteer staff and made a pledge of $500 to their healthcare mission.
“Collectively, you’re all delivering much-needed dental care which has already reworked the lives of over 750 Grenadians in your three earlier missions,’’ Hopkin stated.
Alexis is a dental hygienist on the Malvern-based Dr Sheridan Cyrus Dentistry, which has supported the Smiles GCP missions with money.
Dr Cyrus, proprietor and operator of the Malvern dental follow and a Grenadian by beginning, additionally has travelled with the Smiles GCP volunteers to Grenada.
Deliberate visits to Grenada, in 2020, 2021 and 2022, have been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
On resumption final yr, the volunteers travelled to Carriacou – the place Alexis was born – on their third mission.
They’ll be headed to Grenada in April, spending six days providing free providers, not simply with fillings, extractions and cleansing, but in addition with things like therapeutic massage remedy and nursing help with hypertension and glucose degree checks.
“We did buy some blood stress machines and we’ll be giving that out to individuals with extraordinarily hypertension,’’ Alexis introduced.
The staff’s tools, for providers at two areas in Grenada, will embody a dental X-ray machine, stated Alexis.
Alexis expressed appreciation not simply to members of her travelling healthcare mission, but in addition to the people and organizations – in Canada and Grenada – which have backed her fundraising efforts by means of monetary and in-kind donations.
Cash raised final Saturday will likely be allotted to purchasing a unit for the remedy and care of denture on the 2025 go to to Grenada.
“I feel everyone knows somebody who wants a denture, whether or not it’s a full denture or partial denture. So our purpose tonight is to boost sufficient funds to purchase a dental unit so we are able to present denture care subsequent yr,’’ Alexis stated.
Consul Common Hopkin described the volunteer work of Smiles GCP as “transformative dental care’’, saying it “positively impacts the lives of these on the receiving finish’’.
“The dental and different care that you’re delivering should not merely benefitting the people you deal with,’’ he stated. “Past that, you’re additionally benefitting the economic system of the nation inside which your sufferers stay, examine, work and play.’’
