The state’s 17th annual free dental clinic is set for in the middle of next month. Dentist Lauren Patrick is the local committee chair as the Iowa Mission of Mercy returns to central Iowa at the state fairgrounds in Des Moines.
“It hasn’t been here since 2022 and post pandemic. It looked a little different, but this year we’re super excited to open up the clinic doors. Usually we do about a million dollars worth of free dentistry over the course of two days,” Patrick says. Dr. Patrick says the free clinic is open to anyone. “It’s first come, first serve basis. And we have tons of dental and non-dental professionals ready to service needs,” she says. “So we do a triage process where we figure out what the Most needs are of patients and then we have a hundred dental chairs that are set up and depending on what patient’s needs are, is what we do that day or over the course of the two days.”
She says dental care can make a major impact on someone’s life. “Your oral health is connected to every other system in your body. And so when you aren’t healthy and your mouth So it’s a bacteria that can live in your system, impacts your heart, impacts every system in your body,” Patrick says.
Dr. Patrick says dental work can also have an impact on someone’s confidence. “How you show up in the world also is indicated by your smile, how you feel about your teeth. And so we wanna make sure that patients, not just those who are in pain, but those who just haven’t seen anyone for a really long time, have the opportunity to reach their health goals, but also their confidence goals,” she says.
The Iowa Mission of Mercy free dental clinic is November 13th and 14th at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. The doors will open at 6 a.m. on a first-come, first-served basis until around 6 p.m.
