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Community Health Center Expanding Dental Care
By REBECCA WATTS

Across town, at the Bryan/College Station Community Health Center, construction has already started on expanding the facility’s dental services. What began as a volunteer driven program has since morphed into two full-time dentists, support staff and a steady influx of dental students and assistants. The program now faces the unique complications of having too much staff with too little space to work in.

The Brazos Valley Community Action Agency collaborated with twenty-seven local dentists in late 2003 to begin offering affordable dental services for uninsured and underinsured residents at the Bryan/College Station Community Health Center. However, the program was too large for its location as soon as it began. Volunteer dentists serviced the community in two dental chairs housed in seven-hundred square feet of space.

“We thought, ‘Oh, that’ll be enough,’” said Eric Todd, BVCAA Senior Administrator of Health Services. “We just didn’t recognize the need. Within a year the volunteers were overwhelmed by the demand for dental services.”
Bill Birdwell, DDS, was instrumental in aiding the BVCAA in developing the dental services offered. He said the program has grown considerably since his direct involvement with it in 2003.

“We’ve come a long way since our humble beginnings. For two years, we did it with volunteer dentists working two to two and a half days a week,” Birdwell said.

The program added two dental chairs and two dentists, Dr. Olu Alonge and Dr. Tuyet Nguyen. Both dentists have previous experience with community dental programs. At the request of Dr. Alonge, the BVCAA began paying for the tuition of dental assistants that would eventually receive state certification to apply sealants on children’s teeth. He also brought in student staffers from the University of Texas dental program two to three days a week. In spite of these additions, patients were waiting as long as nine months for an appointment. Through patient satisfaction surveys, the BVCAA found the number one complaint for the Bryan/College Station Community Health Center to be the lack of accessibility to dental services.

“The problem is two dentists, two dental students and assistants that have the potential to do sealants in four chairs. It just doesn’t work,” Mr. Todd said.

The dental program operates out of two rooms the size of a small office. Two dental chairs and a supply cabinet that doubles as a divider fill the room. The remaining space is so limited, an adult male could almost touch both the wall and the supply cabinet with his fingertips while remaining seated in the dental chair.
To address this problem, the BVCAA began raising money to renovate a building already owned by the agency behind the main health center. The BVCAA has raised a total of $185,000 for the project from donations made by Episcopal Health Charities, Meadows Foundation, CDGB Equipment, and the Brown Foundation. However, the agency fell $30,000 short of the $215,000 construction bid, prompting another grant petition to the Maybee Foundation based in Oklahoma. The foundation pledged a matching grant of $30,000 if the BVCAA could locally raise $15,000 in non-governmental funds. For help in this matter, the BVCAA relied on an old friend. Birdwell is placing his bets on his fellow colleagues.
“Dental needs in the Brazos Valley are as critical as any other,” Birdwell said. “We have a dental community that really cares and rallies around the dental needs of the community and the easiest thing for them to do is to write a check.”
The new facility will have double the capacity of the former with eight chairs to accommodate the patients and staff. However, the BVCAA is not waiting for a $15,000 deposit to get started.
“Because we are people of faith, we have already started construction. It will be finished in 90 days and we’ll have another grand opening,” Todd said.