Dental care is back
“I’ll do whatever it takes,” Pamela* thought, the pain of her infected tooth consuming her entire body.
Alone in her apartment in Dundalk, she began to pool her rent money to pay for an emergency dental procedure. “It was excruciating,” she said. “I couldn’t eat anything. Everything was painful.”
Meanwhile, across town, Health Care for the Homeless Dental Director Parita Patel was figuring out how to safely reopen the dental clinic during a global pandemic. She thought about Pamela and the hundreds of other clients in desperate need of relief. Pain or homelessness is a choice no one should have to make. But dental care is expensive, and Maryland has no public insurance coverage for adults.
“I’ll do whatever it takes,” Parita said.
Pamela’s phone rang. It was Health Care for the Homeless. After seven long months, the dental clinic was reopening. She would be the first client in the chair.
“I knew I had an infection and the x-ray confirmed it,” Pamela said. “I was able to get it taken care of that day.”
“We’ve been so eager to get back,” Parita said. “And now we’re equipped to slowly start caring for clients in a safe environment.”
Pamela had her tooth removed at no cost and received antibiotics to treat the infection. She paid her
rent and is now pain free at home. “I don’t know what I would do if Health Care for the Homeless hadn’t been there,” Pamela says.
While we won’t be able to reach full capacity until a vaccine is in widespread use, we will do whatever it takes to remain open. Pamela and so many others are counting on us.
*This name is a pseudonym
Your donations are the reason we can safely provide urgent dental care when it’s needed most.
Donate here
More Recent News
After a year of serving as Practice Manager of West Baltimore, Alkema Jackson is moving into the new role of Director of Practice Operations, Community Sites! She joined Health Care for the Homeless in 2022 as the Client Access Project Coordinator, collaborating across departments to help more people connect to agency services, and in 2023, she received a Core Value Award for Hope. Read on to learn more about Alkema’s approach to this new position…
Meet Christana Greene, our new Director of Compliance! With more than five years in the compliance field—most recently as Senior Quality and Patient Safety Specialist at GBMC Healthcare—Chrissy brings frontline insight to the role. She began her career as a medical assistant, gaining firsthand experience in what it takes to keep care safe and operations running smoothly. In her new role, Chrissy is focused on building a compliance culture grounded in safety, integrity and accountability. Read on to learn more about Chrissy...
Baltimore gets dangerously cold, and too many of our neighbors are out there.Here are three simple things you can do to make a difference in someone’s life this winter.
Meet Lolita Wright, a mother and caregiver. Lolita is never leaving Baltimore. She shares her parents' love of music and determination.