A group of dentists and hygienists have pledged to donate two morning’s worth of their earnings to an emergency dental care charity.

The team at Adams Dental in Chase Side, Southgate, will hold two morning clinics on Saturday March 22 and Saturday March 29, giving 100 per cent of their earnings to Bridge2aid.

The charity takes dentists, nurses and hygienists to Tanzania to provide emergency treatment.

Dr Alex Adams has just returned from a two-week visit to Tanzania where he and 11 colleagues helped train 12 new clinical officers and treated approximately 1,300 patients.

Dr Adams said: “Bridge2Aid is, I believe, unique in that the main purpose of the charity is to help make the Tanzanian people self-sufficient in this area of emergency dental care.

“By providing a compressed and very thorough training of local clinic officers, we teach them how to diagnose dental pain, give local anaesthetic and extract teeth for people who have often suffered dental pain for months or years.

“When each group of volunteer dentists, nurses and hygienists leave Tanzania, they leave behind trained Tanzanians who are capable of carrying on  the work safely and without need for supervision, and are knowledgeable in providing oral hygiene and dietary advice.”

Dr Adams described the difficult conditions faced by dentists in remote areas of Tanzania.

He said: “The locations where we work are usually very basic facilities, with poor lighting and limited facilities, necessitating that sterilisation is carried out using pressure cookers on kerosene stoves and extractions are carried out by torchlight.”

Adams Dental is inviting patients to book treatments on March 22 and March 29, or donate money by texting SELP99 to 70070 or via the Just Giving website: www.justgiving.com/DRRA