Twice a month, a brick building off Oddie Boulevard in Sparks takes patients with toothaches and mouth pain that they might otherwise ignore if they weren’t receiving care for free.
“The little things that we do, if it’s either take a tooth out or make them a small partial denture, or replace some teeth, they are so thankful because they really are hurting,” Dr. Vaughn Stewart told 2 News on Friday, during his brief lunch break.
Compassion Dental opened its doors a decade ago. Executive director J.S. Parker says the clinic served 260 patients last year, and it wants to serve more than 400 in 2024.
“It’s a far cry from thousands that are needing it, but at least it allows us to do something out there in the community to help these people,” he said.
Right now, he’s working to get the volunteer and funding he needs to maintain service, but he has big long-term goals for the practice. Not only does he want to someday keep the clinic open every weekday, but he wants to expand services to become a first-of-its-kind charitable dental urgent care in Northern Nevada.
“There’s 10,000 non-traumatic dental emergency visits a year to our four area emergency rooms in our hospitals, and all they can get when they go in is narcotics or antibiotics. They can’t get any dental help, so they’re told to go out and find a dentist,” he said. “Well, if these people had the ability to find a dentist, they would have already done that.”
Though it’s a goal that will take a lot of work, Parker says it’s worth it, because he knows how important dental care is to a patient’s wellbeing. He says he’s had patients tell him for the first time in years, they feel comfortable smiling again.
