Both Smile Dental Surgery and Rotary Sunrise worked together to treat patients in Peru.

With the assistance of Rotary Sunrise, Dr Bert Thacker, of Smile Dental Surgery in Grand Cayman, recently completed his third visit to Peru to treat children and adults living with no dentists in isolated villages along the Amazon.

Dr Thacker, a Sunrise Rotarian, had the trip sponsored by Rotary Sunrise, who also provided its members as assistants at the clinics.

Dr Thacker took a team from his surgery and all the equipment necessary to arrange four clinics in nine days. The team saw over 350 patients and delivered toothbrushes to patients who haven’t heard of oral hygiene. Some teeth were in a terrible condition, Rotary Sunrise said.

“Very often the only remedy to alleviate pain is to extract the teeth but on this trip they managed some preventative treatment as well,” the service club said.

“Most patients were children under-14 and when they were done they treated the adults, some of whom had suffered toothache for years.”

Getting to places like January 20th - the name of the settlement - is a challenge in itself, Rotary Sunrise said. The party travelled by air to Miami then on to Lima and Iquitos by air then by bus to Nauta and then a five-hour boat trip to arrive at a shanty building where they set up surgery.

“Youngsters line up for treatment and there is no such thing as a missed appointment. They will often shun anaesthetics because they have become used to the pain and are not used to the needle and the numbness it creates,” the club said.

On this trip Rotarian David Reid and his wife Kerry looked after the sterilization of all the instruments. Tania Davies, who speaks fluent Spanish, and Lana Kostich, wife of Dr Bob Kostich, who will be leading a future trip, were also in the party.

Dr Thacker intends to organise two trips a year to Peru and possibly anywhere to treat children. In Cayman, he specialises in orthodontics at the Smile clinic, together with Dr Bob Kostich and Dr Fred Koslowsky.