Teeth relief

Most people have heard of battery acid. In Canada, it's used in all types of batteries - for your Discman, your PalmPilot, even your car battery. It's not used at the dentist. But in the remote villages of Cambodia, battery acid is used as a dental treatment - if you had an abscessed tooth, instead of receiving freezing, you'd receive a shot of battery acid to dull the nerve and soften the gum so that the tooth could be removed with a pair of pliers. This is the state of dental care in Cambodia.

When Greg Anderson, a Phys. Ed. graduate of Queens University, who, with his wife, owns Discus Dental Canada, a dental supply company in Peterborough, Ont., heard of the health care situation in Cambodia, cancelled his vacation plans to Australia and joined the Asian Outreach Cambodia team on a missions' trip to Cambodia so they could see the situation first-hand.

"We realized that the people really needed dental care," says Anderson. He recalls the story of a man who, in his drunken state, poured too much battery acid into his son's mouth to kill the abscess tooth. The excess acid burned the child's throat.

"That did it for me," says Anderson. "I knew we needed to help in some way." So the Andersons decided to donate their time to raising money to help build and maintain three dental clinics in the Lvea Em District, which consists of 25 villages along the Mekong River. The clinics would be accessible to each of the 33,000 people who live in the area, and run by one trained dental nurse, who will aid the locals.

In the past two months, the small team has already raised the $10,000 US. They still need $20,000 more and Anderson says their goal is to raise the money by the end of the year, so that the clinics can be built in early 2005.

"Let's face it, giving doesn't come naturally to any of us," says Anderson. "It takes effort. But it's worth it."