Spotlight on Dental Volunteerism
Sullivan County
Dental Clinic
Dr. Thomas Barberio is one of the hometown heroes
who has been doing his part to make it better.
While many of the stories we have featured
in the Pennsylvania Dental Journal over the
years spotlight members who have traveled
to poor and desperate people in other parts
of the world, we never forget the generosity
of our members who improve the lives of
the neediest people right here in our state. They added another volunteer dentist for
about a year and then hired another husband
and wife team of dentists who began working
one day a week each at the clinic and now
work for a total of four days a week. They
also have hired an assistant and an office
manager.
Pennsylvania is a large and diverse state,
and unfortunately, there are too many areas
without sufficient resources and an
adequate number of practitioners. “We started out using an unused emergency
room in a health care facility with two donated
chairs and a retired dentist’s equipment and
materials,” Dr. Bennardi said. “We have since
moved upstairs to an empty pharmacy space
because we obtained a $500,000 grant. We
now have three chairs, new cabinetry and
our own waiting room space. Philadelphia
College of Osteopathic Medicine owns the
building and lets us use the space rent free.
Dr. Thomas Barberio is one of the hometown
heroes who has been doing his part to
make it better. Dr. Barberio and his wife,
Dr. Mary Bennardi, started the Sullivan
County Dental Clinic in the borough of Laporte
in 2011 and both remain volunteers today.
They started the project as a non-profit
dental clinic that is grant funded and county
funded. The clinic sees all patients, accepts
almost all dental insurances, and has a
sliding fee scale for those who are uninsured
or underinsured. In addition, Accessible
Dental Services comes to the clinic several
times a year to serve the special needs
population.
“Tom and I volunteer one day a month, help
with payroll, and are on call when needed,”
Dr. Bennardi said. “The clinic started out with
just the two of us volunteering and we had
a paid hygienist that also was our assistant
and office manager.”
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“We are serving one of the poorest counties
in the state. This county has had one dentist
for over 30 years. We now can see many
patients who otherwise would not have
had dental care or would have had to travel
out of the county to find care that worked
with Medical Assistance.”
Sullivan County Dental Clinic has about
860 active patients, and had about 3,000
patient visits in the last year (split between
the two volunteer dentists and two
part-time paid dentists).
The clinic is overseen by Sullivan County
Action, a board of directors. Dr. Edward
Kassab, also a PDA member, is now the
supervising dentist at the clinic, having
taken over that role in 2018.