Healing Guatemala dental mission provides needed help

Healing Guatemala’s Bethesda site hosted a dental mission team recently.

Healing Guatemala is a medical mission and clinic that offers ophthalmology, dental care and basic medical needs, both at the clinic and in rural communities in the Chuisajcaba, Guatemala, region. It is led by South Carolina United Methodist pastor Dr. Luke Rhyee.

The team, whose leader was Dr. T.J. Ahn, consisted of dentists and dental students from the U.S. and from South America. The team stayed at Bethesda for the first week of July, serving the people in poverty-stricken areas of Guatemala.

In those communities, the people live from hand to mouth. It would be almost impossible for them to take care of their teeth on their own in these living situations.

Although most of them had been suffering in pain, they just lived with it. Simply, they could not afford to pay for the treatment. However, the medical team reached out to them and treated them to high quality dental service.

During their visit, they also upgraded Bethesda’s dental clinic. The team prepared and utilized many instruments and equipment, including four portable units and a portable digital dental X-ray, which enables the team to provide not only extraction, but also dental scaling, filling and root canal treatments. 

The team also provided the staff with a dental conference via Zoom while there. The speakers were two professors from Harvard Dental School and a dentist who had many years of experience in his own practice.

For more information: healingguatemala.org or Healing Guatemala, P.O. Box 1835, Duluth, GA 30096.