For each of the past two years, Kent dentist Mark Walker of the Meridian Dental Clinic has joined a team of doctors and dentists in a trip to Haiti, but due to the earthquake, he is worried that this year’s trip, scheduled for March, may not happen.
“We’ll have to see how that turns out,” Walker said with a shrug Monday. “We’re planning on going until we’re told not to.”
As a member of Medical Relief International, Walker has visited both the capital, Port-Au-Prince, and a smaller city on the northern coast of the country, La Pointe.
Walker and his team perform basic dental procedures for the residents for free, providing many with what may be their only exposure to a dentist.
“Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere,” he said. “People have severe needs.”
Walker said he did a lot of tooth extractions while in Haiti, while other dentists performed fillings and other “basic dentistry” that many in America take for granted.
But while he compared much of what he saw to the worst affects that methamphetamine and other drug use can have on teeth here in the U.S., he said he saw no signs in Haiti that those dental conditions were drug- or alcohol-related.
“They just have no money,” he said.
Despite the poverty, Walker said his overall sense of the Haitian people was very positive.
“My impression is the people are pretty patient and law-abiding,” he said, adding that there is a strong focus on the family unit. “They don’t have much, so they are really family-oriented.”
As he heard about the quake, Walker said his thoughts turned to his friends and patients on the island, especially those living on the organization’s Bolosse campus, a few miles uphill from the presidential palace, which collapsed during the quake.
Walker said the people he knows all survived the quake, but much of the neighborhood surrounding the campus was destroyed.
“It’s pretty desperate,” he said.
Even before the quake, Walker said Port-Au-Prince’s infrastructure was in terrible shape and many of the citizens lived in concrete homes with corrugated metal roofs which lined narrow streets that may or may not have provided all of the necessities, like running water.
But after the quake, Walker said he was “stunned” at the devastation he saw on TV.
“Their infrastructure was so poor anyway and now it’s a mess,” he said, describing one of the streets on which they traveled as “an interesting ride on; I guess you can call it a road.”
Because of the damage from the quake, Walker said he heard that along with medical teams, contractors may be joining his group for this year’s trip.
Walker urged people to donate to relief organizations to help out in Haiti and said he was “proud” of the response so far from America.
“The money people are sending is going to be put to good use,” he said. “They will want to rebuild.
“I look forward to going down there again,” he said.
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