Hassan El-Nashar’s trip to Tanzania

In October 2009 our Principal Hassan El-Nashar went to Tanzania with Bridge2Aid to help train medical officers in poor areas of Tanzania for two weeks. Bridge2Aid works with the Tanzanian government to improve access to basic dental services and provides training programmes for rural clinical officers.

Hassan decided after spending 2 years raising money for Bridge2Aid with the help of patients and the team at El-Nashar Dental Care he wanted to help the charity further, ‘We give the charity money, but to actually see what’s happening there is quite an experience’ he said.

‘There is no provision for dentistry in rural areas there. To have emergency treatment people have to travel about 40 miles. We were training the local medical officers, so by the end of the six days they were able to do emergency treatments like an extraction. We saw patients who said they had been in pain for years. It was a real eye opener.’

Due to being in a poor area and having no water or electricity, the dentists only used basic equipment much different to what we’d use in our surgeries at home.

He found the trip a challenge, but said it was very rewarding. During their stay they saw more than 1000 patients and extracted around 1300 teeth. ‘I saw things that you wouldn’t think exist,’ he said. ‘These people don’t have anything and are grateful for any dental work they can get. They smile all the time and don’t mind waiting. If we didn’t have time to see those in the queue, they’d come back the next day and didn’t moan at all.’