Mangaluru, July 3, 2019: The Department of Prosthodontics, A B Shetty Memorial Institute of Dental Sciences took part in the largest One Day Complete Denture Fit In Camp held at Coimbatore on 23rd June 2019. The camp was conducted in association with the Sindhi Youth Forum Charitable Trust and RVS Dental College, Coimbatore. For the first time ever, 154 completely edentulous geriatric patients were treated with complete denture prosthesis, free of cost in a single day, in less than 14 hours of time. The camp began at 8 am in the morning and the final denture fit in was done at 9:30 pm.
A team of 248 members consisting of 53 doctors, 160 interns and students along with 35 technicians, paramedics and electricians participated in the camp. All the materials and equipments for the camp were provided by A B Shetty Memorial Institute of Dental Sciences, a constituent college of Nitte Deemed to be University. Generally a patient has to visit a dental surgeon atleast 5 times over a period of two weeks to get a full denture set. To avoid hardship to geriatric patients and keeping in mind their comfort, the procedures were all done in a single day at this camp.
The concept of single day denture camp was started way back in 1990 to provide oral health care for completely edentulous rural geriatric patients at their door step. The idea of single day denture camp was conceptualized for the first time by Prof. (Dr.) N. Sridhar Shetty, who along with the current Principal & Dean, Prof. (Dr) US Krishna Nayak participated in the camp which was led by Prof (Dr) Chethan Hegde, Head, Dept. of Prosthodontics. This was the 58th one - day free Denture Camp conducted by the Department .