By Lincoln DePradine

In 2018, a group of Canadian health professionals visited the Caribbean to provide free dental care. Their services were for nationals of Grenada, which includes the Grenadine islands of Carriacou and Petite Martinique.

By the third trip in 2023, the group – called Smiles Grenada, Carriacou and Petite Martinique (GCP) – discovered that Grenadians suffered from a health condition prevalent among people of African descent in the Caribbean and other parts of the west; that is, high blood pressure.

“Last year, in Carriacou, we had an individual whose blood pressure was extremely high and we advised them to consult their medical doctor and that person ended up in the hospital. So, maybe we saved their life; we don’t know,’’ Vanessa Alexis, founding-president of Smiles GCP said last Saturday at an Ajax fundraising event of her group.

Annual fundraising is important to the group to help cover airfare expenses for the team of volunteers, and also to purchase equipment they take with them on their Caribbean visits. And last Saturday at the “Smiles” fundraiser at the Ajax Recreation Centre, first pledge of $5,000, came from the operator of the company, Canadawide Installation.

“He is not from the Caribbean. He’s from Sri Lanka. He believes in our work and actually traveled to Grenada last year. He wanted to see the work what we’re doing,’’ said Alexis.

Other pledges ranged from $20 to some giving hundreds, and also contributions of up to $2,000.00.

Gerry Hopkin, Grenada’s Toronto-based consul general to Canada, commended Alexis and her volunteer team and made a pledge of $500 to their healthcare mission.

“Together, you are all delivering much-needed dental care which has already transformed the lives of over 750 Grenadians in your three earlier missions,’’ Hopkin said.

Alexis is a dental hygienist at the Malvern-based Dr Sheridan Cyrus Dentistry, which has supported the Smiles GCP missions with cash.

Dr Cyrus, owner and operator of the Malvern dental practice and a Grenadian by birth, also has travelled with the Smiles GCP volunteers to Grenada.

Planned visits to Grenada, in 2020, 2021 and 2022, were cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

On resumption last year, the volunteers travelled to Carriacou – where Alexis was born – on their third mission.

They’ll be headed to Grenada in April, spending six days offering free services, not just with fillings, extractions and cleaning, but also with such things as massage therapy and nursing assistance with high blood pressure and glucose level checks.

“We did purchase some blood pressure machines and we’ll be giving that out to people with extremely high blood pressure,’’ Alexis announced.

The team’s equipment, for services at two locations in Grenada, will include a dental X-ray machine, said Alexis.

Alexis expressed appreciation not just to members of her travelling healthcare mission, but also to the individuals and organizations – in Canada and Grenada – that have backed her fundraising efforts through financial and in-kind donations.

Money raised last Saturday will be allocated to buying a unit for the treatment and care of denture on the 2025 visit to Grenada.

“I think we all know someone who needs a denture, whether it’s a full denture or partial denture. So our goal tonight is to raise enough funds to buy a dental unit so we can provide denture care next year,’’ Alexis said.

Consul General Hopkin described the volunteer work of Smiles GCP as “transformative dental care’’, saying it “positively impacts the lives of those at the receiving end’’.

“The dental and other care that you are delivering are not simply benefitting the individuals you treat,’’ he said. “Beyond that, you are also benefitting the economy of the nation within which your patients live, study, work and play.’’