It’s almost 30 years since Renata Messner, aged 24 and still a student at the time, first travelled to Fiji for her clinical traineeship. That was her first experience of helping people in need in such a far-off country. “Back then, I extracted just shy of 300 teeth in three months and gained a whole lot of experience,” recalled the dentist, who now runs her own practice in Mülheim an der Ruhr in North Rhine-Westphalia.
This year saw Dr. Renata Messner take another flight of more than 10,000 km for the “Zahnärzte helfen” (Dentists Help) organisation. The destination this time was South America, Peru to be exact, where she provided voluntary dental treatment for a period of three weeks. “With 25 years of professional and life experience under my belt, I began thinking about my earlier goal of giving something back to other people. But I also wanted to take something from them back to Europe with me,” said the dentist, explaining her intention. She was accompanied on the journey to South America by her partner and her 14-year-old son.
Overcoming language barriers
The family’s first port of call was Urubamba, a place mostly just passed through by tourists on their way to the ruins at Machu Picchu. In Urubamba, the partner organisation “Corazones para Peru – Herzen für eine neue Welt” took care of the further organisation of their aid mission. Dr. Messner had two deployments on her agenda: one in a Children’s Village in Munaychay and the other in the small town of Huilloc, where the people from the neighbouring mountain villages also came to visit her. However, the dentist needed help communicating with them, as the locals in the remote region speak Quechua. “Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to communicate with them directly, but my Peruvian colleague Dr. Brikz, who works for the aid organisation in the area, kindly interpreted everything for me. She did her training in Peru and, despite her young age and little professional experience, is excellent when it comes to extracting teeth,” explained Renata Messner.
Visits to the dentist when it’s almost too late
And that was also necessary, they only go to the dentist when they need a tooth extracting and all other possibilities have been exhausted,” said the dentist as the people there know nothing of regular check-ups. Renata Messner received donations from dental material manufacturers for the dental treatment and treatment not requiring extractions. “I’m very grateful for that. The organisation does its best to provide the children with a high level of care, but many of them were still suffering from gingivitis. My main task for those patients was removing the calculus.” In addition, she tried to convince the older children in particular to pay more attention to their diet and eat more fruit and vegetables.
Experiences for life
In contrast, the treatment of the smaller patients generally proved somewhat more difficult. “They are not so bothered about the excellent dental treatment they receive in the Children’s Village, but are more interested in the attention and time spent with the carers that comes with it. A hug can also work wonders sometimes. The children were so unbelievably grateful and wanted to spend time with me. That’s something I’ll never forget,” said the dentist reminiscing. She added: “My family and I really enjoyed Peru and were amazed time and time again by how much you can give to other people in such a short space of time. It’s not always important what you do professionally, as anyone can help and volunteers are always in high demand.” She plans to take part in another voluntary programme in South America as soon as possible.