The Greater Nashua Dental Connection has been open for a year and a half, and there is no question this public health facility offers a much needed service to area residents. But since it first opened, the Connection has struggled financially. In the second part of our series, NHPR?s Dan Gorenstein examines why the organization still can?t find sufficient support.
The Greater Nashua Dental Connection has been open for a year and a half, and there is no question this public health facility offers a much needed service to area residents. But since it first opened, the Connection has struggled financially. In the second part of our series, NHPR?s Dan Gorenstein examines why the organization still can?t find sufficient support.
Kim Anastasiou?s third day as executive director for the Dental Connection last year was pretty jarring. Someone passed her a letter from a local foundation. Scanning the letter, she saw the all too familiar phrase.
1:14 ?the endowment has received many proposals.? You know that it?s going to be a bad thing?I have written hundreds of grants and this is just kind of the catch-all, once you read that phrase, you know you have been denied, and it?s try again next year.
The letter came from the Endowment for Health, a year old Concord-based private foundation established to fund health care programs.
In 2001, The Endowment received 22 oral health grant proposals. It funded only three. Foundation President Dr. Jim Squires says his organization looks for applicants that are most likely to last. And a good way to do that, he says, is for clinics to associate with a health center or hospital.
According to Squires, that association provides a more holistic approach to medicine. It eliminates the historic segregation of teeth from the rest of the body. A less philosophical advantage is that a larger facility usually has deep pockets. The Connection is also missing the sustained backing from other organizations.
Track 7
3:07 it?s relatively easy to start something?The trick is to keep it going. And eventually you have got to reach a point where you?ve got funding structure that is in place, that is going to allow you to step back, wondering how to make next week?s payroll, in to some larger arena.
The Connection hasn?t reached that point yet, and the Endowment worries it never will.
Board Member Donnalee Lozeau says being rejected for funding is like looking for a job and not finding one. Frustrating.
Track 5
You are looking for your first job, sorry can?t hire you, you don?t have any expereicne. Well how can I get any experience if you don?t hire me. We are out there, looking for money, and they say you don?t look very viable, you don?t look like a good investment?If you give us the financial security for the short term.
Folks at the Connection hope their education-based program will be attractive to the Endowment and others in the next grant cycle. Hygientist Terry Miller.
Track 39
:00 February is dental health month?toothbrushes and toothpaste?OK?let?s mosey, oh the giant teeth
Right now, Miller and her assistant Amber are off to teach kids at an after school program about how to brush.
1:20-1:30 general after school sound
2:03-2:20 kids responding to Terry
Whether it?s starting up after school programs educational programs, or dental screenings in 5 Nashua schools, Board member Lozeau says the Connection is open to any and all suggestions in order to increase their funding.
1:01?If it?s the endowment for health, or the united way and they say if you modify what you do in this way you would achieve this, please tell us what it is. We want to know, we want to make it a success. We don?t want it to be a continual crisis. The goal is to make sure it is not that. But if we would have waited until we had lined up five years of funding there is 800 kids in this city that wouldn?t be having their teeth taken care of this year. When you are taking out the teeth of an 18 month-old baby b/c she has bottle rot, and you know that is going to affect her overall teeth, well, there wasn?t time to wait.
Board member and volunteer dentist Elliott Paisner says finding enough people to serve is not the problem.
4:34 we could probably hire three full time hygentists, and two dentists, and keep them busy if we had the funding?but we are having a hard time funding what we have, which is a dentist, a hygenist, a dental assistant, and the auxiliary staff.
In response to the financial burdens, Paisner hits up other private practices.
Track 35
:26 I go to the dentists and they say, wait a minute, I give my dues to the dental society, and they are giving you money. I just sent you a check, and supplies, and what else do you want me to do. And I say, I want you to do all that, and send more money and more supplies, and treat patients.
But Nancy Martin at the New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services says all 15 programs offering dental care to underserved New Hampshire communities have a tough time with funding.
1:03 the cost is high, b/c treating people with large dental need is expensive. These people frequently need five or six appointments, and that could be a very expensive undertaking.
The Connection?s Lozeau says, even with the daunting task of tracking down $350,000 dollars a year, the staff and board members are determined to use any means necessary to keep providing dental care in Nashua. They even used $25 thousand dollars of a $125,000 dollar check from St. Joseph?s Hospital to begin an endowment of their own.
For NHPR News, I?m DG
