Dental Assistant for A Day

On Saturday, February 4, I went with several people from Hope 4 Bangkok, a ministry that works in and around Bangkok, to Chonburi prison.  I was invited not knowing what to expect, and the day made for an interesting time.

We were scheduled to depart from the Thailand Adventist Mission headquarters near my apartment at 6:30 am.  Peter, another missionary in Thailand, and I waited until about 7:20 am, late even by Thai time, for the van to pick us up, with a number of other volunteers, mostly Thai.  We arrived at the prison and at that point found out we were going to be helping with dental work.  Dental work may not be the right words, as we did no cleaning.  We did, however, do about six hours worth of extractions.

When we first arrived at the prison, Peter and I asked if we would be allowed to bring our cameras in.  Originally, we were given permission, as long as we did not take pictures of a certain wall.  We were also not allowed to take pictures of the prisoners' faces.  We agreed, but when we pulled out our cameras, another guard said we had to leave them in the lockers at the entrance of the prison.  Some of the other people in the group managed to get cameras inside, however, so there are a few photos of the work we were doing.

The front of Chonburi Prison in Bangkok, Thailand.

My first job was to help Goi, one of the Thai workers with Hope 4 Bangkok, and several other people in assembling syringes for anesthesia.  We also put together several small trays with the necessary dental equipment for the day's work.  Soon, prisoners began to queue up, sitting on two benches while larger groups sat in a row on the path leading to our work area.

Trays prepared for extractions.

The second job I did was to hold the head of the prisoners while the dentist did the extractions.  The first several extractions went fairly well, but the third or fourth was particularly stubborn.  This led to the dentist with whom I was working, a Filipino who had lived in Thailand for about 30 years, to use a sharp tool as a chisel and a pair of pliers as a hammer.  It was fairly gruesome for me, and I quickly felt like I was going to faint as the doctor repeatedly pounded the sharp tool into the prisoner's face.  The heat and face mask didn't help my situation.  I took a quick break after all the shards of tooth were recovered from the patients head.  A drink of water and being able to sit for a moment helped a lot and I was able to steel myself against what I guessed I would see the rest of the time.

Here I am holding the head of a prisoner as the doctor works on a tooth.  That isn't fear in my eyes.  Honest it isn't.

More head holding.

I continued my job as head-holder for a while, providing a solid base against which the doctor could pull or push.  After a while I was replaced by a prisoner so I could have a break, so I took the job of preparing sterile gauze for the dentist.  From that angle I could see more clearly what was going on, which wasn't much of a respite from the action.  It was extremely interesting, however.  I heard stories from the dentist about some of the prisoners, and saw some criminals genuinely frightened as they saw and heard him bringing the plier handles against his metal pick again and again.

It took a lot of people for this tooth.  I guess.

All in all, the prisoners seemed very happy that they were getting this service done.  The teeth really did need to get removed as they were severely rotten and undoubtedly painful.  The reactions of the people in the prison to getting their teeth removed ranged from the boyish fear of going to the dentist for the first time to the stoic, "let's do this" attitude.

A full day of working on teeth.

At one point the dentist, having hammered his chisel a fair amount into a prisoner's face, turned to talk to someone and left the tool sticking out of the man's lower jaw like some frightening flag, warning against prolonged floss inaction.

Goi, Peter and I after work was finished.

I also got a chance to meet Jonas Anderson, a Swede who has been living in Thailand since he was 9 years old and is now a very popular singer.  He has released eight albums, and had joined us at the prison to give a concert and help with the dental ministry.  A really smart and well-spoken man, he has a Midwestern accent, despite having learned English from reading.  On the van ride back to Ramkamhaeng, he and I were given the opportunity to discuss a number of different things varying from Thai relations with surrounding countries to American politics to the state of Thai music (essentially things of which I know little).  A truly nice guy, he does a number of charity events every year.

The group of volunteers who helped at the prison ministry.

It was a great experience and something I look forward to doing again.  Chonburi prison is a maximum-security prison, but by no means the worst in Bangkok.  Most of the men within the prison gates are serving between four and 30 years of prison time, with crimes ranging from drug possession to murder.

This is the equivalent to a fire extinguisher in a prison, apparently.  This ball is filled with fire-retardant material, and when the ball gets too hot, it explodes, shooting the flame killer out.

The directions for putting out a fire with this ball suggested that you bolt the metal bracket to the wall, just above the source of the fire, and the ball will automatically explode when the time is right.  This seemed like a little bit too much work in the crisis of a fire.  Who really has the time to secure the correct size metric wrench and is willing to get close to flames while doing a tedious action like bolting a bracket to a wall?  I much prefer the "manual system," which evidently involves lightly tossing the ball underhand into the three foot flames (I assume this action is accompanied by a hopeless sigh/exertion of noise).  One of the people told me that these balls have a bad reputation for exploding, due to the pressure inside, and breaking all the windows in the vicinity.