As things go....

Information is coming in now and we have established that there are about 500 dentists in Haiti for about 9 million people. Do the math and you can work the kind of dentist to patient ratio that is beyond belief. There is a dental school in Haiti which we believe graduates about thirty dentists a year. Sadly two dentist we understand were lost in the earthquake.

Obviously much of the infrastructure is likely destroyed and this will leave dental care as a very precarious situation for many, many people.

Our research has shown us that there is little happening at the dental school level here in Canada by way of providing assistance to Haiti. We have contacted the CDA also and there seems to be little going on there. FDI is making some steps to try assist dentists in much the same way as we are.

The other news was of course the fact that the Federal Government was discontinuing its matching of funds for donations made by private donors. This seems to be short sighted however in these days of fiscal restraint............

The good news is that the Health Sciences may well be able to assist us in using them as a registered charitable organisation. Our case is being presented to their board shortly and then hopefully this will allow us to move forward with our funding program.

Linda Goodyear and Bob Quigley very kindly came along to our meeting and both have experience of disaster relief. Indeed Linda may well be going down to Haiti in the coming weeks to assist. This would allow us great insight into what is or isn't happening. Maybe we can at that time establish some contacts and move forward with developing some kind of partnership with health/dental care professionals in Haiti.

There was a lot of discussion at the meeting as to how best assist the people of Haiti, whether an immediate response would be of greater benefit than a more measured one. It is difficult to make these kind of decisions, however we do know that in the past Haiti has seen the kind of boom bust scenario many times. The question is always what happens when the assistance stops and everyone leaves.

I have spent many hours in discussion with many people involved with aid projects, and the advice is that the recipients need assistance to allow them to move forward. If we do not allow them to take ownership then when the donors leave the project fails. Our mission should be to leave a lasting legacy of positive change for future generations. Long term sustainability over short term relief.

No date is as yet fixed for our next meeting until Dr Goodyear comes back with some news at which

Results from the meeting of 8th Feb

It was a good meeting with ideas from all directions. We talked around many of the issues facing the people of Haiti and also what kind of response we could make.

It has become apparent to us all that we really did not have a lot of information as to how best to respond. Consequently a decision was made to state our objective in a broad way at this time as " to provide assistance to the Dental Community and the People of Haiti". I think the general feeling was that if we define our objective fairly loosely, we can refine it later as more information becomes available.

Tony Patey, the sec of the Dental Association most kindly agreed to keep minutes and act as sec to the Committee, even I might add on his day off. Thanks Tony. Margot Hiltz has kindly agreed to a roving commission, to be the project contact for the Federal Government and also to liase with Dental Schools.

After some discussion I think that we all felt that we would like "own" this project here in the Province. We are quite aware that the FDI, the CDA and the Red Cross, will be responding in some manner and whilst we can complement and liase with these organisations, and make use of info, we were all of the opinion that we would like make a difference in a way that was meaningful to us and also the people of Haiti.

We discovered that the matching of funds from the Federal Government ran out one month after the earthquake, (last Friday)so this a bit of a blow to our aspirations however we can still make a difference. I did call the Red Cross to see if they would assist us in some way but they were so overwhelmed themselves they did not respond.

I think that nearly everyone in the Dental Community here in the Province ought to be aware, by now, of our Partnership in our Dental Relief Project. We did experience some issues with email, however I think that is fixed now and trust that everyone is in the loop. Anyone who isn't may call the Dental Association as they most kindly are coordinating these issues.

We shall soon be compiling an inventory of equipment etc that has been pledged to the project in the near future, and we would like to thank again the response from so many.

We have the next meeting again at the Dental Association offices at the Fortis Building this coming Monday the 24 February at 7.30 pm. We know that some of you couldn't make it last week but we would love to see your support and feedback.

Meeting to go ahead Monday 8th Feb

We have an agenda of sorts but everything this evening will be very flexible. A chance to have a chat and make some kind of decisions as to where we go from here. Tony Patey will be at the door of the Fortis Building to let anyone in from about 7.20 and if anyone is late then we can leave a phone number such that we can come down and let them in.

I had an opportunity to meet with the exec of the NLDA on Sat, and they were entirely supportive, unanimously in fact. So lets see how things unfold this evening.