MONROVIA, Liberia: Liberia has some of the lowest densities of dentists in Africa. Consistent with the International Well being Group, the rustic had simply 0.01 dentists according to 10,000 other people in 2024. For lots of of its greater than 5 million population, get entry to to dental care is very restricted, and oral illness might because of this cross untreated for an extended duration. Treating sufferers with important dental wishes has transform a part of day-to-day observe for Dr James Hunter, a UK dentist who relocated to Liberia in August 2025.
Dr Hunter lately serves as mission lead for Trinity Dental Hospital and the Liberia Dental Treatment Faculty. The health facility supplies very important remedy for sufferers with critical dental illness and trauma, and the college trains native scholars as dental therapists who may give very important dental care of their communities.
Dr James Hunter (proper) has labored with Trinity Dental Hospital since relocating to Liberia in 2025. The health facility supplies dental deal with sufferers with important remedy wishes.
Ahead of shifting to Liberia, Dr Hunter practised dentistry in Cornwall in the United Kingdom, the place he was once conversant in operating beneath an running microscope. Transitioning to a resource-limited atmosphere the place energy cuts are not unusual represented a vital alternate. In Liberia, Dr Hunter makes use of Admetec’s Ergo V loupes, which offer 3 adjustable magnification ranges in one instrument. This permits him to make use of the similar pair of loupes for surgeries, endodontic remedy and regimen care. A appropriate Admetec headlight supplies constant illumination when the facility provide is unreliable.
Turning procedures into educating alternatives
A big a part of Dr Hunter’s paintings in Liberia comes to coaching scholars on the Liberia Dental Treatment Faculty. Up to now, scholars finding out a brand new method would collect across the dental chair and take a look at to look at the process from in the back of the operator. Dr Hunter now additionally makes use of Admetec’s Flamingo wi-fi digital camera throughout procedures to proportion the clinician’s view with scholars in actual time.
“I used to be extremely excited to place the Flamingo digital camera to just right use in Liberia, and I’ve been in a position to make use of it in way more tactics than I anticipated,” Dr Hunter mentioned. “My scholars can see the ins and outs of a method in some way that simply wouldn’t be imaginable in the event that they had been seeking to glance over my shoulder. In some ways, it permits them to see what I’m doing via my very own eyes.”
In a rustic with some of the lowest densities of dentists in Africa, increasing get entry to to dental care calls for funding in native dental execs.
As a result of procedures may also be recorded, pictures will also be replayed later in the school room. This permits remedies carried out throughout outreach journeys or busy health facility days to offer sensible educating subject matter for the scholars.
Connecting with experts remotely
The digital camera has additionally facilitated faraway collaboration. In some circumstances, Dr Hunter has recorded pictures and shared it with an oral and maxillofacial surgeon, permitting them to talk about advanced circumstances and remedy approaches in spite of being 1000’s of miles aside.
Just lately, this collaboration supported the control of a affected person who had sustained a maxillary fracture in a motorbike coincidence and therefore evolved a palatal fistula. By way of sharing video captured the use of the Flamingo digital camera, Dr Hunter was once in a position to keep in touch the main points of the case and obtain steerage from the surgeon ahead of repairing the defect.
Development Liberia’s dental body of workers
Whilst the scientific paintings at Trinity Dental Hospital is helping meet rapid remedy wishes, the longer-term center of attention is on increasing the dental body of workers in Liberia. The Liberia Dental Treatment Faculty trains dental therapists to offer very important care. By way of incorporating circumstances handled on the health facility into the scholars’ coaching, Dr Hunter can use his daily paintings to give a boost to the training of dental therapists who will cross on to offer care in Liberian communities the place get entry to to dental services and products is proscribed.
