Tuesday 14 July 2009

220. The role of the LBV (Legion of Good Will) in community health (I)


Community involvement: giving without receiving
It was on 31 August, the International Day of Solidarity. Considered one of the fundamental values for human relations in this century, within the medical community dentistry it appears there. Good examples are there.
Mary (fictitious name) runs through the courtyard of one of the centers in support of the Legion of Good Will (LBV), in Porto, with more than two dozen friends. Try not to be caught by the 'bugs' that can hurt the teeth. Run, jink and cries of some wild game, as you escape from colleagues who try to catch.
"The game of the bacteria is one of the activities organized by volunteers of the" Happy Smile ", which runs the Port institutions, promoting hygiene and oral health. With just over six years, Mary still does not understand very well what is the purpose of all this apparatus. "My mom says I have milk teeth and do not need to wash, because sooner or later, will fall. This is an example of the community intervention is so important.
Portugal has high levels of dental caries among young people, to the 'lack of a prevention policy by the authorities that over the years have forwarded the idea of the dentist as curator of a disease and not as preventive. Assertion Cassiano Scapini, dentist who invests part of his time in volunteering.
"We can not be hostage to office. We must, rather, take our commitments to the community ', argues with conviction. "In the twenty-first century is no longer felt to think, only in dental rehabilitation. Our role is increasingly inform and accompany the client to avoid the appearance of diseases' states. The professional not conceive its function without devoting several hours of the day the 'social work'. Because, only then, he believes, can change the landscape of oral health in Portugal that believes, is "catastrophic." However, suggests, "to put the question should be: what role in society in the dentist?

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