Kudjip Nazarene Hospital, Papua New Guinea:  There is great excitement in the highlands of Papua New Guinea as a much needed and anticipated dental clinic has been built and is set to open in the near future!

Dr. Meier sent in the following report:

While I was away in the US, we got a dental clinic!  Our maintenance staff redid a few rooms in our old outpatient department in the old hospital, we had some donated dental supplies and made some other donations work and the end result was a dental clinic.  

It isn’t perfect and still has some kinks to be worked out, but in the month of January we had 2 volunteer dentists (Terry and Sabrina Butler) come and help set things up and work out of our dental clinic, and it was such a blessing to so many.  In 4 weeks, they did over 700 procedures and saw over 300 patients.  I didn’t get to see the clinic in action, but I look forward to seeing it up and running in the future.

This is exciting as we are awaiting the arrival of our first dentist who is coming to Kudjip through Samaritan’s Purse Post-Residency Program – similar to how I first got to PNG.  This dentist was headed to Liberia, but Ebola redirected her to PNG.  We are still waiting on her work permit and entry permit in order for her to get her ticket and come, but we are expecting it to happen very soon and then we can work out the details of how to fit dentistry into ministry here at Kudjip. 

There aren’t a lot of dental options for our staff or the patients who live near us, so having a dental clinic here will be a huge blessing to so many.  

Please pray for our new dentist and her final paperwork, for wisdom to know how to run the clinic so we can care for those who need care, and for assistants to help with this ministry.

— Submitted:  Dr. Erin Meier