ELKS' MOBILE DENTAL UNIT BRINGS A SMILE!

Tom Hinkebein has been bringing the mobile dental unit to Cape Girardeau since 1984.

The mobile dental unit is equipped with all the equipment to be found in a regular dentist office.

Looking at it from the outside, one might think there was nothing special about the large mobile home that is sitting outside the Elks Lodge in Cape Girardeau. But special things happen on the other side of the doors.

Inside, the mobile home has been converted into a dentist's office, with dental chairs, bright lights and spit sinks.

Even a waiting room.

It's called a mobile dental unit, and disabled, mentally handicapped and underprivileged children needing dental care can now get it at the unit in Cape Girardeau.

"It's a regular dentist office, except it's on wheels," said Cindy Smith, the dental assistant who has worked with the mobile unit for nine years.

The mobile dentist office, which arrived May 13, will be in the parking lot of the Cape Girardeau Elks Lodge until July 3.

The unit travels to many areas in the state, including Washington, Farmington, Sikeston and Poplar Bluff, staying about 30 days in each. After leaving Cape Girardeau, it will travel to Ste. Genevieve.

The unit provides many services to those children who are eligible, such as examinations and diagnosis, removal or restoration of infected or painful teeth, treatment of gingivitis or mouth infections, placement of steel crowns and space maintainers and preventive and oral hygiene instruction to patients and their family.

The unit, one of three such units in Missouri, is staffed by a dentist and his assistant employed by Truman Medical Center, a dental hospital in Kansas City.

Dr. John Enkey of St. Louis has been the dentist for the unit for about two years. Smith, his assistant, is from Farmington and has been in dentistry for nearly 20 years.

The units are sponsored by the Missouri Elks organizations, which paid more than $100,000 a piece for the three mobile units that travel across Missouri. The state helps defray the cost of keeping the mobile units going.

Tom Hinkebein has been the local Elks chairman of the Elks Mobile Dental Program for the last 12 years.

He says Elks Club members first saw the need for this kind of program in 1962.

"They were looking for a state project," he said. "They discovered there was a need for dental care for handicapped and disabled youth."

Many parents of disabled children aren't wealthy, he said. And many government programs, including Medicaid, don't cover routine dental cleaning and checkups.

"The kids were falling through the cracks," he said.

So Elks members donated a substantial amount of money to a trust fund of which the interest has been buying the units and the equipment. They then turned the units over to the state.

The job is a little more difficult than regular dentistry settings, the unit's personnel say.

"Most of the kids who come in here are orally defensive," said Smith.

Some handicapped children don't like having people or objects placed in or around their faces and mouths, especially autistic children, she said.

But she doesn't really mind it.

"This is more challenging in some ways," she said, and subsequently more rewarding. "It's a very interesting job."

Hinkebein says he understands how important this program is.

"Most of the time, dentists cannot meet the needs for these children," he said. "For something as simple as a checkup, a child may have to come back a couple of times. Some dentists would rather not take these patients."

They also take a small percentage of Elks' referrals. These are veterans, adult handicaps and financially stressed people.

"We try to help anybody we can who can't get help anywhere else," Hinkebein said.

The unit provides about $70,000 worth of dental care in the 30 days at each site and the entire program provides more than $500,000 free dental treatment annually.

Those wishing to determine eligibility should contact the local representative for the Department of Health.