STANWOOD – Erling Skrinde is looking forward to expanding his menu again.
“I’m getting so tired of oatmeal mush and Campbell’s soup,” the 83-year-old Stanwood man said.
Skrinde was sitting in a recreational vehicle converted into a dental clinic that parks once a month at the Stanwood Community and Senior Center, as well as at seven other sites in Snohomish County.
He was waiting on some new teeth.
Dan Bates / The Herald
The trailer is the Northwest Medical Team’s mobile dental office. It is one of several mobile clinics the Portland, Ore.-based nonprofit group sends out to serve low-income residents throughout Washington and Oregon, said Ron Guderian, the mobile clinic’s manager.
The trailer was in Stanwood on Monday because that’s when local dentist Dr. Russell Smith had a day off and could volunteer his time.
The clinic relies on volunteers such as Smith, and on retired Stanwood dentist Dr. Donald Hayes.
“It’s just one of those things you give back to the community,” Smith said between patients.
Skrinde was back on Monday after having five teeth pulled at the mobile clinic during a previous visit. The plan is to install dentures later.
“In the beginning, we didn’t do dentures,” Guderian said. “They were not seen as an acute dental need.”
The group soon realized that people such as Skrinde with multiple bad teeth could not eat solid food and thus had poor nutrition that led to other health problems, Guderian said.
Many of the clinic’s patients are seniors who lost dental insurance when they retired, Guderian said.
Dan Bates / The Herald
Not all are seniors, though. Some, such as Pat Clark of Camano Island, simply can’t afford to go to a dentist.
Clark said a Camano Island dentist referred her to the mobile clinic after she asked if she could make payments to fix a problem tooth. “I was really happy to find out there was somewhere I could come,” she said.
The Stanwood Community and Senior Center was one of the mobile clinic’s original stops in 1998, Guderian said.
In 2005, his mobile unit logged 3,643 volunteer hours at all its sites. At normal rates of about $36 an hour, volunteers’ labor would have been worth $130,351, Guderian said. They performed more than 10,000 procedures that would have been worth almost $1 million, he said.
Even with volunteer labor, raising money to keep the clinic coming back to Stanwood every year is not easy, said Christie Connors, senior wellness nurse at the senior center.
Running the mobile clinic costs $800 a day, half of which Northwest Medical Team asks the Stanwood community to cover, Connors said. She lines up grant money, such as $1,000 chipped in by the Snohomish County Dental Foundation.
Connors also sends out a letter to area dentists each year asking for donations of time and money. “It’s really tough to get dentists,” she said.
Having a retired dentist such as Hayes available has helped, Smith added.
Skrinde, for example, was pleasantly surprised on his first visit to see Hayes, who had been his regular dentist in town.
Skrinde is already thinking about the joys of solid food.
“I like oatmeal mush, but I think I’ll stay away from it for a while after I get (my teeth) fixed,” he said.
Reporter Scott Morris: 425-339-3292 or smorris@heraldnet.com.
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