Browse Sections

• Heritage 
• Web links
• Your Letters

Medic setting up dental charity in Bangladesh

15/11/2007

A MANCHESTER medic is off to Bangladesh to put smiles back on the faces of people deformed by disease, poisoning and violence.

Liz Gill, a dental prosthetist at Manchester Metropolitan University is part of a team of British maxillofacial experts who are setting up a charity to help rebuild faces in the world's poorest country.

Thousands of Bangladeshis have been deformed by arsenic poisoning in well water in the past decade and acid attacks by men on women and girls have left hundreds scared, not to mention everyday birth defects many of which go unremedied due to poverty and lack of medical care.

Liz, who will spend two weeks in Bangladesh with Kevin Page from Frenchay Hospital, Bristol  and Mamoon Ferdousi, a consultant surgeon, said: "There are many sad cases of cleft palates and horrific burns which are just left. Families not afford the treatment and are blighted for life because the deformed cannot get married or maybe not even earn a living."

The team will work with patients at Dhaka Community Hospital reconstructing teeth, jaws, artificial eyes and helping to remove scar tissue on the face and neck.

"Maxillofacial and prosthetics experts take over when surgery can do no more", adds Liz who has been giving talks to community groups to raise money for equipment.

And unlike most charities which fund travel and freight to the developing world every penny is being used on treatment.

"We're paying our own flights and accommodation and taking all the equipment ourselves door to door to guarantee it gets to where it's needed," Liz said.

Vitally the team will also have a role in teaching doctors, dentists and surgeons in Dhaka on the technical side of prosthetics, showing them some of the latest techniques used in the UK.

"We like to think this is unique. There are plenty of groups flying out to do operations and coming back again, but we believe it is more important to equip local people with the skills to make treatment sustainable."