Despite all the problems that the soldiers and ordinary people have in Afghanistan, there appears to be a little bit of hope on the medical front. Dentists from the UK, USA, Afghanistan and others have joined forces to offer dental care to local people.

Although the country was bombed by coalition forces, one US citizen, Dr. James Rolfe, decided to go to Afghanistan to offer his services for free and try to give back to the people something that’s been lost because of ongoing war for the past 30 years.

Afghanistan is now a devastated nation with most of the country no longer possessing even the basic infrastructure generally accepted as a right elsewhere – reliable water, energy supply, telecommunications, public transport, refrigeration, sanitation and medical care.

Set up by dentists such as Dr. Rolfe, the Afghanistan Dental Relief Project aims to provide dental services to Afghan people living in outlying areas which do not have easy access dental or medical care. All have volunteered their expertise in 2 ways: first to give direct help, and second to train the Afghans themselves in dentistry and dental technology.

A spokesperson for the Afghanistan Dental Relief Project said: “Our goal is to help them by addressing the almost total lack of professional dental care in Afghanistan. We are working to establish permanent dental centres in underserved areas.”

He added: “Most of the people seeking services in these centres will never have seen a dentist or have received dental treatment.

“Dealing with patients who have no dental treatment exposure, volunteer dentists are experiencing that these people have complex problems with their teeth that come from a whole lifetime of cumulative lack of professional care.

“They have never had their teeth cleaned or had cavities treated in time to prevent serious problems from developing.”