By HOWARD JONES
Dr Jim Poyner relaxes with Mrs Stuart, Dr Jill Poyner and Ms Hogan. A DENTAL team from Albury treated hundreds of Tibetan refugees and their Indian hosts when they visited the Indian-Tibet border region for five days last month.
Although they took sophisticated dental equipment, they were also fortunate to have their bushwalking headlamps with them when the electricity in their makeshift clinics blacked out.
Dr Jim Poyner and his wife, Dr Jill Poyner, dental assistant Ms Kelly Hogan and dental hygienist Mrs Tracy Stuart were accompanied by a Frankston dentist, Dr Chi-Sang Yim for a self-funded visit.
Several Albury-Wodonga dentists donated dental materials and the Rotary Club of Albury North helped subsidise some of the associated costs.
Dr Jim Poyner said their main work was among schools for Tibetan refugees at Dalhousie, a five-hour jeep trip from Dharamsala, and was provided free of charge. The cricket series between Australia and India had begun but interested only their Indian patients.
“The Tibetans dont follow cricket but the Indian children play cricket everywhere,” Dr Jill Poyner said. She said the group treated 841 patients, mostly Tibetan refugee children, extracted 208 teeth and placed 401 fillings.
“We had no dentists chair but the patients lay on a school bench with a pillow,” she said. “The power from the generators wasnt all that good but we had our bushwalker headlamps with us when the lights went out.”
