On November 27th 2014 Saveetha Dental College a constituent college of Saveetha University held the India Smile 2014, a Dental awareness camp in association with Times if India group.This was an initiative of boosting community service among the student fraternity,even though it is part of their curriculam. This Dental camp was also to instill a Service-Learning component. In the Service component- the student spends time in assessing the felt need of the community and in the Learning component- they will integrate learning into their service.
Saveetha Dental College is working tirelessly towards developing and executing initiatives that have spread the importance of good oral health and hygiene to the public. As an institution which holds responsibility towards public health, Saveetha dental college remains committed in bringing oral care awareness to the people through dental screening/ treatment and dental health education programs and have conducted over 600 dental screening camps and screened over one lakh population
A beautiful smile can make a great impression and the importance of a healthy teeth cannot be underscored for this. Unfortunately the level of awareness about oral hygiene among children in India is quite dismal. Dental problems in children including tooth decay and cavities are very common and are often caused by lack of oral hygiene and improper knowledge of dental care.
The percentage of patients who have access to dental services are very low in India, when compared to other countries. Reports from various studies show that the patients visit the dentist only, when they experience pain and no follow-up is done in most of the cases. Although there have been impressive advances in both dental technology and scientific understanding of oral diseases. Significant disparities remain in both the rates of dental diseases and access to dental care among subgroups of population.
Therefore it is imperative to teach children the importance of proper oral care at a young age so that they enjoy a healthy smile lifelong and this can be achieved only if the younger generation works towards the goal of creating an India free of dental problems.
Saveetha university’s mammoth campaign - “India smiles” will go a long way in creating this awareness. The first of its kind campaign aims at creating awareness about dental health and oral hygiene among children and their parents.
In order to achieve the above objective, dental screening camps were organized in schools across IndiaThe camp materialized due to the team effort of all the faculty, students and alumni of our institution. Initially the target was fixed to screen 1,00,000 school children across the country. Assuming a possible attrition in screening of estimated school children due to various reasons, the target had been revised to 1,30,000.
A lakh and thirty thousand disposable mouth mirror and probes were purchased for screening dental diseases. All armamentarium required for screening was provided. Schoolchildren were screened for dental problems in a single day at 77 centres across the country, at various centres ie Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Madurai including Chennai, A team of 256 doctors, 566 dental students and 300 volunteers pulled off the extensive screening, to create awareness about oral health among schoolchildren.
