Last week I seemed to have dislodged a filling but didn’t notice any immediate discomfort so I just carried on with my normal affairs. Over the course of the weekend however I began to notice a large amount of sensitivity on the tooth (upper right pre-molar) and some tenderness in above my gum line. I remember as I child I had gotten an abcessed baby tooth and recognized that it seemed like a similar sensation. I was alarmed to say the least, stuck in a developing country with no concept of my dental care and to be quite honest, without the resources necessary for emergency dental surgery. As somebody who already deals with anxiety issues, I was pretty worked up and in a fair amount of pain by the time work started on Sunday.
I asked steve about what I should do and we got sidetracked discussing the disparity between dental care between the US, the UK, and Palestine. The kind of work I needed was most likely a root canal and a crown, which in the states would run me upwards of 5,000 dollars since I don’t have dental insurance. In England, the same treatment would cost me about 400 dollars because of their national dental coverage. I think it’s absurd that people place so much importance on the issue of national healthcare in America considering dental care is just as vital to the health of the country and how it is completely ignored in all discussions. When I asked about my dental care options in Palestine Steve told me that I am completely covered by the university (along with healthcare) and that there was a university dentist with an office on campus that could see me immediately.
I want to just stop there and point out how incredible this is. Not only am I, as an intern, receiving full benefits but the university retains its own dentist to insure that I have easy access to care at work. I’ve never heard of such a simple and practical solution to taking care of employees and simultaneously investing in the health of the community. It really highlights how broken American health care truly is when you consider that I am in the dentist chair within five minutes of wanting care in the Global South.
I wandered over to the dental office and I will admit, we are not talking about first class facilities. I think my favorite part was that the mirror on the counter had some of the corners broken off and the chair had a distinctly yellow tinge to it that can only be a product of the 80’s…or maybe the 70’s. All the same the dentist was a friendly lady who got me into the chair immediately and within two minutes had my face numb and was ready to go to work. I’ll avoid all the details of the work since no one likes to hear about that business. Within twenty minutes I had my first of three appointments done. No paperwork, no appointments, no wait, no hassle. I’m not saying there are no trade offs to getting care in a developing country, but they seem like ones that I would happily exchange for the situation I came from to the situation I have now. In America I don’t know what I could have done or would have done- I don’t have exactly an emergency dental care nest egg. In Palestine, I got the care I needed, but more importantly than that I found a culture of compassion in health and dental care and that is greater than any technological advancement I could ask for.
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