HIV Dental Clinic in Phnom Penh

CamKids are pleased to report that we are helping to fund Happy Clinic – a dental clinic established in April this year and operated by One-2-One. The Clinic is located in the grounds of the Happy Tree orphanage in Phnom Penh. The orphanage cares exclusively for children with HIV/Aids and the Happy Clinic is the only clinic in Cambodia to provide dental care to children with HIV/Aids.

Happy Clinic is staffed by a dentist and two dental nurses and provides services not only to the Happy Tree children but also to street children and children from other poor communities.

Between August and September, Happy Clinic examined 322 children from various children’s centres including the ‘River Kids’ organisation and a very poor community called ‘6km Community’ located just outside of Phnom Penh.

The oral health knowledge and consequently the oral hygiene of these children and their carers is very poor, resulting in much dental decay and a great deal of pain and suffering. Happy Clinic was able to provide a range of treatments including 160 fillings, 193 fluoride treatments, 177 sealants and 87 extractions.

The Happy Clinic team strongly believe in prevention before cure and an important part of their work is the provision of oral health education and practical demonstrations are given by the dental team to all children attending the clinic. They also visit other orphanages and communities and provide information on how to maintain oral health and general hygiene.

Happy Clinic staff have been visiting children from ‘6km Community’, a slum community outside Phnom Penh. One-2-One came in to contact with this community through one of it’s dental assistants, who used to be a resident. The community is extremely poor, the majority of the children do not attend school and are left unattended while their parents work. Throughout August, One-2-One took many of the community’s children to Happy Clinic and provided them with dental treatment, many more children still need to be treated and will be seen in the coming months.

Part of a personal message from Dr Kim Sreang the dentist at Happy Clinic:

“The most common problems I have were decay on the permanent teeth, however, after they have been to Happy Clinic I can see that their oral health status has changed a lot. For preventative care: every time children come to Happy Clinic, dental assistant give them oral hygiene instruction and I have applied fluoride vanish which makes the teeth strong and prevents the teeth from decaying, and now I can see that they have a better smile. The thing is when are in pain they cannot speak up, they are shy and embarrassed which make them scared of other people, and then cannot learn well from the school.

I am very happy and enjoy working with the children; I am committed and will try my best to work well with the children and their carers and directors. I am grateful that I can help my own people. Children are the best and brightest future for Cambodia. Thank you CamKids for your partnership. We protect the children together”

Here is a personal story from Srey Nak, one of the children from River Kids:

“My name is Srey Nak, I am14 years old. This is my first that I can have chance to visit Happy Clinic. I got toothache and I could not drink, eat and sleep well. It is really distracted me from studying, and sometime I missed school, because I cannot concentrate in the class, which is really difficult for me. Now my teeth no longer in pain, I am so happy that I can chew the food well. I can now go to school and concentrate. I would like to say thank so much to CamKids and One-2-One for saving my teeth and helping me with my life.”