BCC, County Health Department awarded collaborative $266k dental grant

Broward Community College and the Broward County Health Department have been awarded a two-year grant for $266,000 from Health Foundation of South Florida to create a Broward County Health Department “safety net” dental clinic. The clinic will be located at Broward Community College’s clinic at the A. Hugh Adams Central Campus in Davie.

Clinic services will increase access to oral health services for families whose income falls at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level. This should provide access to dental care to approximately 1,000 people per year who would not otherwise have been able to obtain these services. The collaborative effort will promote access to dental care for medically underserved residents of Broward County.

The program will also provide opportunities for students in BCC’s dental assisting and dental hygiene programs.

“Dental assisting and dental hygiene students will have the opportunity to work with the patients who are being treated through this program,” said Joyce Abraham, associate dean for dental assisting and dental hygiene at BCC.

“We are truly excited by the many benefits to our students,” Abraham said. “The dental assisting students will be able to utilize this clinic as an extern rotation, an important part of the required curriculum standards. They will have the opportunity to perform four-handed dentistry on campus and also be educated about the goals and objectives of public health dentistry.”

The collaborative grant is the first one of its type that the college’s dental programs have participated in. The grant team was made up of Abraham, Dr. Perminder Wadhwa, dental director for the Broward County Health Department; Dr. Lidia Alonso, assistant dental director for the Broward County Health Department; Dr. Kathryn Gerstman, foundation and government grants officer for the Broward Community College Foundation; Dr. Marlinda Quintana Jefferson, BCHD patient care administrator, and Ann Marie Mercer, BCHD assistant patient care administrator.

Health Foundation of South Florida, a not-for-profit grantmaking foundation, is dedicated to expanding access to affordable, quality health care and providing funding that directly benefits the health and well being of underserved individuals in Broward, Miami-Dade and Monroe counties. Since its inception in 1993, the foundation has awarded more that $75 million in grants and direct program support.