Mark Williams went without sleep for his teeth. What was remarkable about that was he was joined by about 2,000 other people Thursday night doing the same thing in the dark outside a church in Woodstock. They lined up for the miracle of free dentistry.
“I couldn’t afford a dentist, so I didn’t have much choice,” said Williams, 44, of Lilburn, Friday afternoon, rubbing his jaw as he sat in a lobby at First Baptist Church of Woodstock on Ga. 92 after he’d had a bad tooth pulled that had been hurting for six months. The work was done by one of hundreds of dentists who volunteered for the two-day Georgia Dental Mission of Mercy that ends Saturday.
It was an outpouring, and pulling out, of bad teeth. And maybe even a new economic indicator in a nation where millions are out of work and the insurance that goes with it, especially dental insurance, which many consider a luxury and the first place they cut when trimming budgets to survival mode.
It was also an act of generosity by the 1,500 volunteers dentist and hygienists who, by the end of today expect to have patched and repaired teeth in more than 2,000 people who would otherwise have to live with toothaches, malaclusions, and gap-tooth smiles.
Woodstock police estimate between 2,300 and 3,000 people were waiting outside the church when the doors opened Friday morning at 5 a.m. People had waited since Thursday morning, some bringing chairs, blankets and pillows. By early afternoon the scene inside resembled something out of the old M.A.S.H. television series about a wartime surgical unit.
Patients were arrayed on either sides of five long work stations, six patients to each side, with signs labeling work stations: Extractions, Fillings, Cleanings, Root Canals. Assistants hurried from station to station while a large garbage bin on wheels made the rounds and discards from the procedures – spent needles, and absorbant materials -- were tossed in.
“I guess I’ve worked on about ten patients in the last three hours,” said Dr. Andy Allgood, of Martinez, Ga. “I normally wouldn’t want to see ten patients that quick. It wouldn’t be good for me, or them. But today it’s working out.”
At a long table in the front of the room instruments were sterilized in 16 autoclaves, which can cleanse about 400 tools in 40 minutes. They were operating non-stop. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” said dental hygienist Tonya R. Lanthier.
Dentists came by and grabbed instruments with odd names (scalers and cowhorns) by the handful and scurried away. Upstairs a lab was set up and the smell of melting wax and Bunsen burners tinged the air as technicians built in a few hours bridges it would normally take two weeks to get on order.
“By the end of this day we’ll have made about 80 (dental plates and parts) and delivered about 50-60,” said Dr. Donald Brown, an Atlanta dentist who oversaw the operation. “We hope to send out another 60 or 70 tomorrow.”
Kim Schreiber, 46, figured to be one of Brown’s customers. She was waiting outside to get on the list of people who would be first served when the event reopens at 5 a.m. Saturday. It’s been two years since she’s been to a dentist since she lost her job in Kennesaw working for a U.S. Navy store.
“My teeth are so bad, I’ve been to the hospital three times this year for the abcesses,” she said, displaying a smile of jagged and darkened teeth. “I know they’re going to have to pull a bunch of them. But at least they’ll stop hurting.”
Donald Hill’s is another too little, too late tooth tale. An unemployed 51-year-old construction worker from Cherokee County, he’s been losing teeth steadily for years. Another one broke off about two weeks ago.
“They tell me they’re going to remove eight up here on the right side,” he said, pointing at his jaw. “And three down here on the right, and three more down here on the left. I reckon I’ll have about six or eight left, and I’m not getting a bridge.”
“When adults lose their jobs and their dental insurance, there’s just no safety net, there’s nowhere for them to get help,” said Martha S. Phillips, executive director of the Georgia Dental Association, which organized the event. The space was provided by the church and hundreds of vendors supplied about $1 million in materials and equipment.
The need for free dental and medical care has escalated throughout Georgia and the nation in recent years as millions of Americans lost their jobs and insurance, according to Donna Looper, executive director of the nonprofit Georgia Free Clinic Network.
The nearly 100 medical and dental clinics the nonprofit represents have seen demand jump by 25 to 30 percent each year since 2007 – treating 320,000 low-income Georgians last year alone, Looper said. Across the country, large free dental clinics have been staged in 16 states, but it is the first such event in Georgia on this scale.
Pharmacist Amanda Paisley worked at the end of the assembly line that started with signing in and watching dental education videos -- how to brush and how to floss – and ended with patients getting antibiotics and pain killers after the procedures.
She’d seen one miracle after another all day. “The ones who get me are the ones who are crying after they’ve had restorative work,” she said. “Now they feel like they can get work. They have their smile and their self-esteem back.”
Kerry Maxwell, 30, was one of those. She sat out in the auditorium with her husband, who was waiting to get teeth extracted and an upper bridge put in. She smiled at a reporter, and pointed at a front tooth.
“I had an ugly cavity here in the front and now it’s good as new,” she said. “If I had gone to Medicaid, they would have just pulled it.”
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