• KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE
• Apr 2023
• Bulletin

BDS Students Engaged with Community

Dental Outreach Project for Elderly in Tai O

The Gallant Ho Experiential Learning Fund supports the BDS students to serve the elderlies.

Tai O is a remote village where over 30% of its population is elderly and over 40% of households live below the poverty line. Isolated location and poverty have created significant barriers for the elderly in Tai O to access dental care.

This year, a team of 12 Bachelor of Dental Surgery Year Four (BDS4) students, led by Dr Phoebe Lam, Clinical Assistant Professor in Paediatric Dentistry, went the extra mile to this remote village. The dental team has obtained the Gallant Ho Experiential Learning Fund to serve the elderly with limited dental access there.

BDS4 students provide dental examinations and scaling to the Tai O elderlies.

“There is only one Jockey Club government dental clinic in our village, and the only treatment offered is extraction.” One elderly participant mentioned. “If we want other dental treatments, it will take a 45-minute bumpy bus journey to Tung Chung. It’s too much for the elderly and I don’t know how much it will cost me.”

As part of the project, BDS4 students stayed in Tai O for 2 days to provide dental examinations, dental scaling, preventive fluoride application, and simple restorative treatments to the participating elderly.

Another important aim was to promote oral health awareness in the Tai O community. In addition to organizing interactive oral health workshops for the elderly, the team also trained and empowered secondary and university students living in Tai O to lead in promoting self and community oral health.

BDS students deliver oral health education to the elderlies.

The dental students also had the opportunity to interact with the local villagers, home-visiting their serving targets at their “shack houses”. The project has greatly increased their knowledge on how dental care can play a role in uplifting the lives of the underprivileged locally. The project also enhanced their sense of social responsibility and commitment to serve the community.

“I am very thankful for this precious opportunity for us to join the service. I enjoyed the service very much. I have been touched so much by the hospitality and generosity of the Tai O residents; it is a gem in HK that I have never found out. It was also a great chance to cooperate with my other classmates and get to know them more; it was a great time spent together. I wish these kinds of activities could be held more often in different years; I am sure students will enjoy the same as I did. It is a precious learning opportunity, fun, and meaningful service all in one,” reflected by one of the BDS participants.

(Front row left) Dr Phoebe Lam believes the outreach project enhances BDS students’ sense of social responsibility and commitment to serve the community.