Case Study: How my Passion for the Profession Can Blossom as a Business Owner

by Lori Lawrence R.D.H.

What do you do when 640 evacuees come to your town and they barely had time to pack their toothbrushes?

The newscast on Wednesday July 20^th announced that within 24 hours, 640 First Nations Evacuees, men women and children, would be descending on my town. They had less than 24 hours to pack up and get ready to vacate their Town of Deer Lake, Ontario, 500 miles north of Thunder Bay because of threats of raging forest fires. I listened intently to the radio the next day and sure enough after a long journey by plane, they were now arriving by the bus loads to stay at an evacuation center set up at the former Rideau Regional institution in Smith Falls Ontario.

On Friday after work, I went to my local Wal-Mart store and as I became more aware of my surroundings, I started seeing people in need. First I saw one family of six in the shoe department, and then in the next isle another young mother with her 2 small children was buying some groceries, over in the analgesic isle there must have been twelve more evacuees looking for some pain medication. As I wandered through the store, it was obvious that these people did not normally have the services of a large department store readily available.

You might think they would be jumping with excitement, but they weren’t. They were tired from a long journey, they were confused, and of course seemed lost in a new environment where nothing was familiar and they knew no one. As I went through the check out, I noticed there sitting in a stack of water softener salt bags was another group just waiting patiently for some complete stranger to come and pick them up and drive them to their temporary home.

As I drove home, my mind went into full gear…what could I do to help?

This is where being a health care professional gives me the most PRIDE. It enables me to be able to react and more importantly as an Independent dental hygienist it enables me to act in an emergency situation like this.

What makes us want to jump in with both feet and help? I believe it is because as dental hygienists, many of us possess similar characteristics, traits, and qualities such as:

• Caring: immediately concerned with the well-being of others.
• Helpful: we want to give assistance to others who are in need
• Devoted: our dedication to a purpose is unwavering
• Fair: we act in a way that we are equitable and impartial
• Tolerant: we recognize and respect how others think and feel
• Persevering: we continue on plan of action in spite of the
  obstacles.
• Supportive: we encourage and help anyway we can
• Analytical: we dissect whatever the crisis is in order to assist

My analytical side immediately went to work; I got home, left my groceries on the counter and immediately went online to email the Emergency Management Team to be supportive and offer my services wherever needed. The caring side of me could not wait for an email response, so I went over to the evacuation center to see for myself what I suspected all along. We all know that the aboriginal people that live in the far North have very little access to dental services. I spoke with the Community Health Center coordinator. I explained to him that these people have extremely high needs, and I wanted to help any way I could. I have 2 dental chairs, myself and a DDS, both willing to devote what ever it took to help get some of them out of pain. He was very appreciative and explained that they would start to prioritize the worst cases to be done first.

In the meantime, I spoke with the Red Cross volunteers to ascertain their inventory of dental supplies. The shelves were pretty bare; again the analytical voice in my head said that is easy to fix! I came home and sent out an email to all my suppliers whom I deal with and asked to call in some favors, explaining the situation; I simply asked if they could donate some dental supplies. Within 48 hours, I had over 1000 toothbrushes, 800 tubes of toothpaste, and 400 units of floss arrive at my office! I immediately brought them over and the shelves were stocked!

By this time, we have persevered to get through all the red tape, and by the end of the week the clients started coming to my office to be assessed and treated. Everyone had multiple concerns and we took care as many of their needs as possible. This is where tolerance comes in; the last thing you wanted to do in an emergency situation is give them the big speech on homecare, diet, and prevention. It was very important in this situation to recognize their lifestyle and respect their human needs.

I had big plans for over the weekend; I was working preparing a little dental education seminar for the elders and the children, but before the weekend was over, I got word that the Red Cross was making preparations so they could return safely to their homes and be reunited with their families.  By Monday most of them were gone.

How quickly some people come in and out of our lives!  It is important to remember that no matter how small of a contribution, we can make a difference.

If there is a silver lining in this story (in the business side of this case study), the Ontario and Federal Ministries of Health were following this story closely. Partly because I was calling them relentlessly to see if the Minister of Health would temporarily approve the dental hygiene services of an Independent practitioner in order to cover the costs of the periodontal treatment they received. I wasn’t surprised that the answer was an unequivocal “no”. At least I am certain of one thing….the next time they have their round table discussions, I am hopeful that the plight of the independent dental hygienist not being able to provide dental hygiene service to one of the highest needs groups in this country, will be discussed.

In this regard, thank you to the Deer Lake community for bringing attention to an inequality that should not exist in this country, hopefully some day you will all be able to access paid services from a self-initiated dental hygienist.

Lori Lawrence R.D.H.

IDHA