ROANOKE TIMES Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times DATE: Friday, January 31, 1997 TAG: 9701310055 SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO DATELINE: BEDFORD SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER
A BEDFORD-AREA clinic for low-income residents, now open only 10 hours a week in a tiny trailer, soon will offer full-time services in a bigger office, thanks to two new grants.
An unhappy-looking 14-year-old girl showed up at the dental trailer at Bedford Primary School a couple of years ago for what may have been the first dental appointment in her life.
Her frown held a secret - severely decayed front teeth.
"She did everything she could do not to smile," said Dr. Glenn Kimble, a dentist with the Virginia Department of Health. Kimble and Laura Poole, his assistant at the Bedford dental clinic, gave the girl fillings and cleaned her teeth.
"It made all the difference in the world," Kimble said. "Her personality blossomed after that, it seemed."
"Her self-esteem grew," Poole agreed.
The girl is one of more than 500 children from low-income and uninsured families in Bedford and Bedford County who seek dental treatment each year at the clinic, operated by the state Health Department in a tiny trailer in a parking lot beside Bedford Primary since 1990.
Kimble, who also works in state dental clinics in Appomattox and Campbell counties, sees patients in the Bedford clinic one day a week. As many as 15 to 20 patients ages 21 and younger and four to five adults - who are seen on an emergency basis only - seek his services every Wednesday.
In rural areas such as Bedford, dental care is a severe problem for poor families, many of whom can't afford it and who get no fluoridated drinking water because their homes have wells.
"In a child coming in for the first time, who we've never seen before, we expect to see three or four cavities," Kimble said. "That's the average."
The clinic offers a vital service because the Bradley Free Clinic in Roanoke isn't able to provides dental care to Bedford residents, and the wait for a dentist at the Free Clinic of Central Virginia in Lynchburg is about a year, he said.
"We've had some impact, but when you're only here 10 hours a week, there's only so much you can do," said Kimble, who was born in rural Campbell County. "We know there's still lots of children out there not receiving proper dental care."
Thanks to grants from the Bedford Community Health Foundation and the Virginia Health Care Foundation, however, the dental clinic will soon be open full time, in a bigger facility with more resources available to both children and adults.
The Bedford Community Health Foundation, a nonprofit, independent group that helps provide medical services to Bedford and Bedford County folk, contributed about $24,000 last year to buy a new trailer. It's about three times bigger than the clinic's present home - a cramped, old 10-by-20-foot trailer decorated with children's drawings. Its doorknob is a coat hanger covered with duct tape.
Inspired by the seed money, the Virginia Health Care Foundation, another nonprofit, independent organization, announced in December that it would award the clinic a three-year $200,000 grant for new staff and resources.
"This is a real home run for us, to be able to leverage a $24,000 grant into a $200,000 grant," said Roger Henderson, executive director of the Bedford Community Health Foundation. "It's something we're very proud of."
"It was a blessing," Kimble said. "We're really excited about the new facility."
The new clinic will open in July across from the clinic's current spot at Bedford Primary.
Among the new staff positions funded will be a dentist, who will work 30 hours a week in addition to Kimble's hours, and a dental hygienist, who will oversee a fluoride rinse program for children in county schools. Fluoride rinse programs elsewhere have reduced cavities by 60 percent to 65 percent, Kimble said.
And through a volunteer program sponsored by the Bedford Christian Free Clinic, the dental trailer will be able to see adult patients one night a week. Dr. Buck Lovelace, a Bedford dentist, has committed to volunteering there.
Over the next three or four years, the dental clinic is to move into a permanent home in a planned addition at Bedford Primary. The new trailer will then become a secondary dental clinic in the southern part of Bedford County.
"I think by the time we get up and running in July, there's going to be a whole lot of folks who never would have gotten dental care otherwise," Henderson said, "and that's why we're here."
LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: JANEL RHODA STAFF. 1. Dr. Glenn Kimble prepares toby CNBextract one of 12-year-old Otis Bryant's teeth. 2. Until Otis
recently visited the clinic (left), no dentist had treated him.
color.