Improving Dental Health in rural Sierra Leone
Did you know that in Sierra Leone tooth ache can be a life-threatening disease?
No? Nor did we. But it’s the reality in the communities we work in.
Complications due to poor dental hygiene are very common in Sierra Leone. Basic dental hygiene (toothbrushing, toothpicking) are not routine in many settings due to lack of knowledge and lack of money to finance. People with tooth ache often don’t visit health facilities when the pain starts. They only come when complications occur. In our hospital we see patients suffering from complications of poor dental hygiene several times per month. These patients are often younger than 30 and present with life-threathening infections of the face and neck, that can lead to obstructed airway and that sometimes spread into the chest. Often these patients present so late that even correct management with antibiotics and repeated can not save them anymore.
Prevention is therefore better than the cure. With this project proposal we want to start a project in the Lion Heart Medical Centre and its communities to improve dental hygiene from the start, rather than treat complications of poor hygiene at the end. We need €8000 to get this project off the ground.
Can you help us? Each euro donated will bring us closer to our goal.
On behalf of Lion Heart Medical Centre and the people from the community thanks for your help!
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The Lion Heart Medical Centre is a second-line health facility located in Yele, the rural heart of Sierra Leone. It was founded by the Lion Heart Foundation.
The direct catchment area of the hospital is roughly 100.000 people from the surrounding communities, but patients also travel from far beyond. With a capacity of 70 beds divided over male, female, paediatric, isolation and maternity wards, the hospital provides good and timely basic health care services. Main targets groups include the under-fives and pregnant women. With around 70 local staff members and 2 expatriates, 10.000 patients are treated annually.
Goal of the Lion Heart Foundation is to support the hospital on its way to being a self-sustainable organisation, handed back to a local management team in Sierra Leone. Our mission has succeeded when the support from Lion Heart Foundation is not longer necessary and Lion Heart Medical Centre has become independent.
We are not there yet. For our mission to succeed, we will need the help from local and foreign sponsors to fund projects that will bring us closer to this goal, one step at a time.
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