The dentists from a clinic in Matanzas have vanished

Matanzas/In the “César Escalante” Stomatology Clinic in the city of Matanzas, not even the characteristic dentist smell remains. The echo of the hallways replaces the hum of switched-off equipment, and the silence is broken only when a frustrated patient leaves without hope. Despite its status as a teaching center, not a single student is seen walking through its classrooms, where generations of dentists were previously trained.

On the corner of Zaragoza and Contreras, the premises – which should serve more than 19,000 people – look empty. “I found the reception without anyone and the hallways desolate; it gives the impression of abandonment,” he tells 14ymedio a woman from Matanzas who this Wednesday arrived with a damaged tooth and a cloth with some ice, already almost melted, to be able to withstand the acute pain caused by an inflamed dental nerve.

With her eyes turned upward, each time the intense discomfort escalated again, the patient ran into, after a while, a young woman who informed her that they were only treating emergency cases. “In the end I didn’t know if I was talking to an employee or a patient, because I had nothing to identify her,” she says, unsure whether her situation will fall into the “urgent” category.

To guarantee the treatment, he has arrived with some supplies that are scarce in the place. “I brought some sterile gloves, gauze, lidocaine and a syringe with one of those little needles that are used in the mouth,” he explains to this newspaper. A bread with ham and cheese, wrapped in paper, and a cola drink complete the supplies he keeps in his wallet. “In case the person serving me hasn’t been able to have lunch,” he points out.

For the staff, the critical situation that the clinic is going through, between long power outages and the lack of dental supplies, is a serious problem. “The dissatisfaction is not only among the people, but also among those of us who love our profession. We are practically working as we did a century ago,” acknowledges a dentist who most of the time goes to her workplace “to waste time because either there is no power or there is no water.”

In the long hallway that leads to the consultation rooms, practically all the doors are closed and there are no staff inside. A few years ago, from inside those cubicles came the dreaded sound of dental drills, the clacking of metal instruments and the voice of dentists calling some patient in pain to calm down. All of that is missed in the midst of the silence that now extends everywhere.

The woman waiting to be treated presses the pieces of ice against her left cheek and looks at the ceiling. His lips move in a very low prayer. A murmur in which she asks for someone to appear in a white coat, with a smile on her face and the ability to take away that pain that doesn’t let her sleep or live.